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BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


THE    HUMAN    INTELLECT. 

With  an  Introduction  upon  Psychology  and  the  Human 
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THE 


AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


AND 


THE  AMERICAN  PUBLIC. 

(new  edition.) 


WITH   AFTER-THOUGHTS    ON    COLLEGE    AND 
SCHOOL    EDUCATION, 


NOAH    PORTER,    D.D.,    LL.D., 

PRESIDENT  OF  YALE  COLLEGE. 


"It  is  not  necessary  that  this  should  be  a  school  of  three  hundred 

OR   ONE   HUNDRED   OR   FIFTY   BOYS,    BUT    IT   IS   NECESSARY  THAT   IT    SHOULD    BE   A 

SCHOOL  OF  CHRISTIAN  GENTLEMEN."— Z?r.  T/tomas  Arnold,  of  Rugby. 


NEW   YORK: 
CHARLES     SCRIBNER'S     SONS, 

743   AND    745    Kroadway, 


Copyright  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS, 

'  1878. 


Trow's 

Printing  &  Bookbinding  Co. 

205-213  Kast  \iih  St., 

NEW   YORK. 


TO 

THEODORE  D.  WOOLSEY,  D.D.,  LL.D., 

President  of  Yale  College, 

A    SINCERE    FRIEND    OF   EDUCATIONAL    PROGRESS, 

AS   WELL  AS   OF 

ALL    TRUTH  AND   GOODNESS, 

THESE     PAPERS     ARE     INSCRIBED, 

BY  THE  AUTHOR. 


PREFACE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION. 


The  first  large  edition  of  this  work  having  been  ex- 
hausted for  several  years,  a  second  is  now  submitted  to 
the  American  Public,  with  the  addition  of  several  papers 
on  subjects  that  are  nearly  related  to  the  topics  already 
discussed.  The  writer  trusts  that  it  will  be  remembered 
that  not  one  of  the  essays  in  the  volume  is  exhaustive  of 
its  theme,  and  that  the  suggestions  which  they  contain 
are  expressed  very  frankly,  with  the  expectation  that 
they  will  not  receive  the  assent  of  many  who  read  them. 
The  interests  involved,  however,  are  too  important  to 
allow  the  concealment  of  opinions  which  concern  some 
of  the  most  important  interests  of  the  community. 

N.  P. 

Yale  College,  September ^  1878. 


CONTENTS. 


I.  Historical  and  Introductory,    .       .       .       •       9 

II.  The  Studies  of  the  American  Colleges,      .         39 

III.  The  Prescribed  Curriculum,       ....      92 

IV.  Text  Books  and  Lectures,        .        .        .        .        119 
V.  The  Enforcement  of  Fidelity,    .        .        .        .134 

VI.  The  Evils  of  the  College  System  and  their 

Remedies, ^4^ 

VII.  The  Common  Life  of  the  College,         .        .        165 

VIII.  The  Dormitory  System, 184 

IX.  The  Class  System 191 

X.  Laws  and  Supervision, 198 

XL  The  Religious  Character  of  Colleges,         .        206 

XIL  The  Guardianship  and  Control  of  the  College,  238 

XIIL  The  Relation  of  Colleges  to  one  another,        250 

XIV.  The  Relation  of  Colleges  to  Schools  of  Science,  259 

XV.  Educational  Progress  and  Reform,        .        .        271 

ADDITIONAL   PAPERS. 
I.    Preparatory  Schools  for  College  and  Univer- 
sity Life, ^^3 


Vlii  CONTENTS. 

II.     The  Class  System  in  Colleges 315 

III,  Classical  Study  and  Instruction,  ....  337 

IV.  Morals  and  Manners  of  Colleges  and  Universi- 

ties,    363 

V.     The  Ideal  American  University,  ....  381 

VI.     Co-Education  of  the  Sexes,        ....  397 

Books  and  Pamphlets  Referred  to,       .        .        .  405 


THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


HISTORICAL   AND  INTRODUCTORY. 

The  American  Colleges  have  of  late  been  somewhat 
formally  challenged  by  what  is  called  the  American 
Public^  to  appear  before  its  tribunal,  and  to  give  a  sat- 
isfactory explanation  and  defense  of  their  system  of 
discipline  and  study,  on  penalty  of  being  either  con- 
demned or  "suffering  a  default."  The  challenge  has 
been  repeated  too  often,  and  from  too  many  quarters, 
to  be  wholly  neglected,  however  confident  the  friends 
and  defenders  of  the  college  system  may  be  of  the 
goodness  of  their  cause. 

It  should  be  remembered,  however,  that  the  present 
is  not  the  only  time  when  this  system  has  been  seriously 
called  in  question,  or  when  important  changes  have 
been  proposed  in  order  to  bring  it  into  nearer  con- 
formity with  the  so-called  spirit  of  the  times,  the  alleged 
wants  of  educated  men  themselves,  and  the  demands  of 
what  was  termed  public  opinion. 

In  August,  1826,  a  detailed  report  was  presented  to 
the  Board  of  Trustees  of  Amherst  College  proposing 


lO  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

very  important  modifications  of  its  course  of  study. 
This  provided,  among  other  features,  for  the  addition 
to  the  "  present  classical  and  scientific  four  years' 
course,"  of  "  a  new  course  equally  thorough  and  ele- 
vated with  this,  but  distinguished  from  it  by  a  more 
modern  and  national  aspect,  and  by  a  better  adapt- 
ation to  the  taste  and  future  pursuits  of  a  large  class 
of  young  men,  who  aspire  to  the  advantages  of  a  lib- 
eral education."  It  also  provided  for  "a  department 
devoted  to  the  science  and  art  of  teaching  ;  but  more 
especially,  at  first,  to  the  education  of  schoolmasters," 
and  also  for  "  a  department  of  theoretical  and  prac- 
tical mechanics."  The  proposed  course,  which  was  to 
be  equally  thorough  and  elevated  with  the  old,  was  to 
be  distinguished  by  the  following  features,  viz.,  the 
greater  prominence  given  to  English  literature  ;  the 
substitution  of  French  and  Spanish,  and  eventually  of 
German  and  Italian,  for  Greek  and  Latin  ;  the  study 
of  Practical  Mechanics  ;  greater  attention  to  Chemis- 
try, Natural  History,  to  "  Modern  History,  especially 
the  History  of  the  Puritans,"  and  to  "  Civil  and  Political 
law,  embracing  the  careful  study  of  American  Consti- 
tutions." To  these  might  be  added  "  Drawing  and  Civil 
Engineering."  Ancient  History,  Geography,  Grammar, 
Rhetoric  and  Oratory,  Mathematics,  Physics,  Intellect- 
ual and  Moral  Philosophy,  Anatomy,  Political  Econ- 
omy, and  Theology,  were  retained  in  both  courses.  In 
conformity  with  this  plan,  the  studies  for  this  parallel 
course  were  assigned  to  the  several  terms  of  the  four 
years'  course,  text-books  were  selected,  and  it  was  con- 
fidently expected  that  many  who  aspired  to  the  degree 
of  B.  A.  would  prefer  the  studies  which  were  believed  to 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  II 

be  SO  much  better  suited  to  modern  ideas.  The  reasons 
for  substituting  the  modern  languages  for  the  ancient^ 
and  for  giving  a  wider  range  to  certain  other  studies,  were 
urged  with  great  earnestness  by  the  authors  of  the  plan, 
and  they  are  ver}^  nearly  like  those  which  we  find  in  the 
many  publications  which  have  been  issued  within  the 
last  few  years  advocating  a  reform  of  the  college  system. 
The  views  expressed  m  the  Report  presented  to  the 
Trustees  of  Amherst  College  in  1826,  and  those  in  the 
Report  of  the  Committee  on  Organization  presented  to 
the  Trustees  of  the  Cornell  University  in  1866,  are 
strikingly  alike.  Both  reports  assert,  in  strong  language, 
that  dissatisfaction  prevails  extensively  with  the  college 
system  as  then  and  now  conducted.  Both  insist,. with 
assured  positiveness,  that  more  valuable  results  can  be 
attained  by  providing  parallel  and  special  courses  of 
study.  The  principal  differences  are,  that  the  Cornell 
report  in  its  second  general  course  substitutes  German 
for  Greek,  and  in  its  third,  French  and  German  for 
Latin  and  Greek,  and  that  it  also  provides  most  liber- 
ally, and  in  a  very  sanguine  and  hopeful  spirit,  for  op- 
tional and  special  courses,  and  for  a  large  corps  of 
special  and  non-resident  lecturers.  The  scheme  pro- 
posed at  Amherst  never  went  any  further  than  to  be 
printed  in  one  or  two  annual  catalogues,  with  the  names 
of  a  few  special  students.  No  person,  so  far  as  we  are 
informed,  ever  received  the  Bachelor's  degree  on  the 
modern  course  of  study. 

In  1827,  Hon.  Noyes  Darling,  a  member  of  the  Cor- 
poration of  Yale  College,  introduced  a  resolution  that 
a  committee  be  appointed  "  to  inquire  into  the  expedi- 
ency of  so  altering  the  regular  course  of  instruction  in 


12  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

this  college,  as  to  leave  out  of  said  course  the  study  of 
the  dead  languages^  substituting  other  studies  therefor, 
and  either  requiring  a  competent  knowledge  of  said 
languages  as  a  condition  of  admittance  into  the  college, 
or  providing  instruction  in  the  same  for  such  as  shall 
choose  to  study  them  after  admittance,  and  that  the 
said  committee  be  requested  to  report  at  the  next  an- 
nual meeting  of  this  corporation."  In  1828  the  com- 
mittee made  their  report,  and  included  "  in  it  two  elab- 
orate papers  written  by  President  Day  and  Professor 
Kingsley,"  one  containing  a  summary  view  of  the  plan 
of  education  in  the  college  ;  the  other  "  an  inquiry  into 
the  expediency  of  insisting  on  the  study  of  the  ancient 
languages." 

In  the  year  1825  a  resolution  was  adopted  by  tlie 
governing  boards  of  Harvard  College,  in  the  words : 
"  The  University  is  open  tp  persons  who  are  not  candi- 
dates for  a  degree,  and  desire  to  study  in  particular  de- 
partments only."  This  scheme  was  adopted,  says  Pres- 
ident Quincy,  "  with  great  expectations,  but,  as  the  event 
proved,  without  any  important  success.  During  these 
sixteen  years,  only  eighteen  students  have  joined  the 
college  under  this  permission."  After  the  failure  of 
this  experiment,  the  elective  system  was  introduced  in 
1841,  with  expectations  equally  confident.  In  principle 
it  is  not  strikingly  diverse  from  that  which  has  been  re- 
cently adopted.  President  Quincy  wrote  a  very  able 
and  earnest  pamphlet  in  its  vindication — not  less  able 
in  its  argument  than  the  very  brief  statement  of  reasons 
in  President  Eliot's  Inaugural,  in  which  he  asserts  with 
a  slightly  emphatic  positiveness,  "  the  college  therefore 
proposes  to  persevere  in  its  efforts  to  establish,  improve, 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  13 

and  extend  the  elective  system."  The  first  system  was 
in  the  most  of  its  features  singularly  like  the  one  re- 
cently provided.  In  two  or  three  particulars  it  was  less 
objectionable  ;  in  others,  it  was  more  so.  It  enforced 
a  prescribed  curriculum  till  the  end  of  Freshman  year. 
It  then  allowed  an  entire  discontinuance  of  the  study 
of  Greek  and  Latin,  with  the  choice  of  substitutes  in 
one  or  more  of  the  following  branches  :  "  Natural  His- 
tory ;  Civil  History ;  Chemistry ;  Geography  and  the 
use  of  globes ;  Popular  Astronomy ;  Modern  Langua- 
ges ;  Modern  Oriental  Literature,  or  studies  in  either 
Greek  or  Latin  which  may  not  have  been  discontinued, 
in  addition  to  the  prescribed  course  in  such  branch." 

The  Rules  of  the  Faculty  prescribing  the  details  of 
the  plan  correspond  very  nearly  to  those  now  enforced, 
and  need  not  be  given  at  length.  The  scheme  was  by 
no  means  universally  acceptable,  either  to  the  friends 
or  the  Faculty  of  the  college.  It  was  ably  criticised  in 
an  article  in  the  North  American  Review  for  January, 
1842,  which  concludes  as  follows:  "  The  experience  of 
one  or  two  years  will  probably  show  how  groundless 
was  the  expectation,  on  which  the  authors  of  this  sys- 
tem have  acted,  that  a  large  body  of  students  would  be 
attracted  to  Cambridge  by  such  a  free  and  conciliatory 
proposal.  Then,  if  not  before,  we  hope  they  will  be 
willing  to  retrace  their  steps  and  to  stake  the  reputation 
of  Harvard  College,  not  on  the  numbers  enrolled  in  its 
catalogue,  but  on  the  extent,  accuracy  and  thorough- 
ness of  the  education  obtained  within  its  walls." 

This  prophecy  was  speedily  fulfilled.  The  elective 
system  of  1841  was  very  soon  abandoned,  and  the  col- 
lege feil  back  to  its  old  and  approved  ways  of  a  fixed, 
uniform,  and  classical  curriculum. 


14  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

In  1829  the  University  of  Vermont  proposed  some 
important  changes  which  at  that  time  were  novelties. 
It  endeavored  to  shake  off  tlie  restrictions  of  the  class 
system  by  exacting  an  examination  upon  each  author 
and  study,  as  a  condition  of  being  allowed  to  pass  to 
the  next,  and  it  permitted  students  to  pursue  single 
studies  or  courses  of  study  in  any  department  of  knowl- 
edge ;  restricting,  however,  the  first  degree  of  the  col- 
lege to  those  students  who  should  thoroughly  master  its 
classical  and  mathematical  course.  The  report  of  Pres- 
ident Marsh  insisted  with  great  emphasis,  that  to  give 
this  degree  to  any  others  would  be  a  breach  of  courtesy 
and  good  faith,  inasmuch  as  the  degree  had  a  fixed 
and  uniform  significance.  The  plan  of  study  proposed 
was  only  suited  to  a  college  with  a  very  small  number 
of  students,  and  resulted  in  no  appreciable  change  in 
the  conduct  of  the  university,  or  in  the  college  systems 
generally.  The  high  scholarship  of  President  Marsh 
was  in  many  other  ways,  however,  most  happy  in  the 
tone  which  it  imparted  to  the  classical  and  higher  edu- 
cation of  the  country. 

In  the  year  1850  a  complete  revolution  was  effected 
in  the  constitution  of  Brown  University,  in  conformity 
with  the  principles  set  forth  in  a  "  Report  to  the  Cor- 
poration, on  changes  in  the  system  of  Collegiate  Edu- 
cation." The  measures  which  it  proposed  were  briefly 
as  follows  :  "  The  fixed  term  of  four  years  or  any  other 
term  is  to  be  abandoned,  and  every  student  is  allowed 
to  pursue  as  many  or  as  few  courses  of  study,  as  he  may 
choose,  subject  to  certain  limitations.  Every  course  of 
study,  when  once  begun,  is  to  be  continued,  without  in- 
terruption, till  it  is  completed.     No  student  is  to  be  ad- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 5 

mitted  to  a  degree  unless  he  shall  sustain  his  examin- 
ation in  all  the  studies  required  for  the  degree,  but  no 
student  shall  be  under  any  obligation  to  proceed  to  a 
degree.  Persons  are  to  be  admitted  to  the  studies  of 
the  several  courses,  if  prepared  to  pursue  those  studies 
only ;  no  general  examination  for  admission  to  the  Uni- 
versity being  prescribed.  A  variety  of  degrees  and 
testimonials  are  also  promised."  This  plan  was  carried 
into  effect.  A  fund  of  125,000  dollars  was  raised  to 
enable  the  University  to  provide  the  necessary  outfit  of 
apparatus  and  professors.  A  considerable  addition  was 
made  to  its  teaching  force.  The  introduction  of  the  new 
system  was  hailed  by  its  advocates  with  great  enthusi- 
asm, and  the  most  confident  predictions  were  uttered 
that  there  was  at  last  one  real  university  in  the  country 
which  would  teach  the  classics  with  thoroughness  and 
success  to  those  who  might  elect  to  pursue  them,  and 
which  would  also  meet  the  demands  and  necessities  of 
the  very  large  number  who  might  desire  a  scientific  and 
practical  education.  The  speedy  downfall  of  the  old 
scholastic  system  was  confidently  predicted.  But  these 
predictions  were  not  fulfilled.  On  the  contrary,  the 
words  which  Dr.  Wayland  had  written  in  1842,  probably 
with  reference  to  the  changes  adopted  at  Amherst  and 
recently  introduced  into  Harvard,  were  signally  realized 
at  his  own  University.  "  The  colleges,  so  far  as  I  know, 
which  have  obeyed  the  suggestions  of  the  public,  have 
failed  to  find  themselves  sustained  by  the  public.  The 
means  which  it  was  supposed  would  increase  the  num- 
ber of  students,  in  fact  diminished  it,  and  thus  things 
gradually,  after  every  variety  of  trial,  have  generally 
tended  to  their  original  constitution.     So  much  easier 


l6  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

is  it  to  discover  faults  than  to  amend  them  ;  to  point 
out  evils  than  to  remove  them.  And  thus  have  we  been 
taught  that  the  public  does  not  always  know  what  it 
wants,  and  that  it  is  not  always  wise  to  take  it  at  its 
word."  (Thoughts  on  the  Present  Collegiate  System^  etc., 
1842.) 

We  have  referred  to  these  facts  to  remind  some  of 
our  readers  that  the  views  which  are  now  so  confidently 
urged  are  not  entirely  novel,  and  that  some  of  them 
have  already  been  in  a  certain  sense  subjected  to  the 
test  of  an  actual  or  at  least  a  proposed  experiment. 
But  the  lights  of  experience  only  shine  upon  the  wake 
of  the  advancing  vessel.  The  American  colleges  are, 
as  we  have  said,  brought  again  before  the  tribunal 
of  public  opinion.  This  is  manifest  from  the  changes 
which  have  been  introduced  into  some  of  the  colleges 
themselves,  and  from  the  very  earnest  claim  that  is 
made  that  such  changes -are  required  by  the  spirit  of 
the  age,  the  advance  of  science,  and  by  "  the  fluctu- 
ations of  public  opinion  on  educational  problems." 
Several  institutions  have  already  been  either  newly 
founded  or  reorganized,  in  accordance  with  these  de- 
mands. We  name  first  of  all  the  timely  provision  and 
the  eminent  success  of  special  schools  of  Science  and  of 
Technology.  The  Lawrence  Scientific  School  at  Cam- 
bridge, 1842,  and  the  Sheffield  School  at  New  Haven, 
1847,  began  as  special  schools  of  Chemistry,  and  of 
Chemistry  and  Engineering.  They  grew  out  of  the  de- 
mand for  special  scientific  and  practical  instruction  in 
the  two  kindred  branches  named.  These  schools  have 
steadily  grown,  and  a  great  number  of  similar  institu- 
tions have  been  provided  in  connection  with  the  col- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


17 


leges,  and  also  as  independent  organizations.  The 
Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  established  in  1824, 
had  previously  done  good  work  in  training  naturalists 
and  engineers,  and  had  also  supplied  many  of  the  ele- 
ments of  a  general  education,  but  it  had  not  exerted 
any  disturbing  influence  upon  the  college  system,  or  at- 
tracted general  attention.  The  Massachusetts  Institute 
of  Technology  in  Boston,  the  Columbia  School  of  IMines 
in  New  York,  the  Chandler  Scientific  School  at  Hano- 
ver, to  say  nothing  of  the  many  Polytechnic  and  Agri- 
cultural schools  which  have  been  founded  with  the 
avails  of  the  land  scrip  of  the  United  States  Govern- 
ment, are  examples.  Many  of  these  schools  have  added 
special  studies  in  the  Physical  and  Mathematical  sci- 
ences, instruction  in  the  Modern  languages  and  in  Eng- 
lish literature,  so  as  to  provide  a  systematic  course  of 
study  and  discipline  in  what  are  called  modern  studies, 
to  the  exclusion  of  the  ancient  languages.  These  courses 
are  somewhat  analogous  to  the  college  curriculum  with 
the  classics  left  out,  except  that  they  usually  require  but 
three  years  and  neither  require  Greek  nor  (with  one  ex- 
ception only)  Latin  for  admission.  In  this  way  there 
have  grown  up  schools  of  education,  upon  what  are  called 
modern  ideas,  which  it  is  claimed  are  more  practical  in 
the  education  which  they  give,  with  the  advantage  of 
disciplining  the  intellect  to  equal  power  and  refinement 
with  that  which  the  colleges  impart.  The  education 
which  is  given  has  been  significantly  styled  by  one  of  its 
ablest  exponents  and  advocates,  '■''The  New  Educaiioii.^^ 
The  most  prosperous  of  these  schools,  however,  it  is  to 
be  noticed,  have  gradually  laid  aside  the  irregular  system 
of  teaching  every  student  whatever  he  cared  to  study, 


lO  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

and  no  more  ;  and  have  adopted  in  its  place  a  regular 
curriculum,  with  the  liberty  of  electing  between  two 
or  more  subordinate  courses,  at  an  advanced  stage  of 
progress,  and  have  so  far  fallen  into  the  approved  ways 
of  the  colleges.  It  is  claimed  for  these  schools,  how- 
ever, not  only  that  they  teach  special  arts  and  sciences 
with  more  thoroughness  and  practical  adaptation  than 
the  colleges,  but  that  their  training  in  the  Modern  Lan- 
guages, including  the  EngHsh,  is  far  better  fitted  for  the 
culture  of  a  large  body  of  students,  than  the  more  an- 
tiquated and  scholastic  discipline  which  the  colleges 
enforce.  The  doctrine  is  confidently  propounded  that 
for  purposes  of  discipline  the  modern  languages  are  as 
good  as  the  ancient,  while  for  every  end  of  aesthetic  and 
practical  education,  the  new  education  is  far  superior  to 
the  old,  in  that  it  prepares  the  student  more  directly 
and  consciously  for  the  world  in  which  he  is  to  live, — 
preeminently  because  the  knowledge  and  culture  which 
these  schools  impart  are^  taught  with  an  energy  and  are 
received  with  an  enthusiasm  which  a  nearer  connection 
with  the  actual  and  impending  world  alone  can  impart. 
The  inference  has  been  drawn  from  these  assumed  data 
and  from  the  success  of  these  important  schools  of 
science  and  art,  that  if  the  colleges  desire  to  retain 
their  hold  on  the  community,  and  to  retain  the  number 
of  their  students,  they  must  introduce  into  their  courses 
of  instruction  many  of  the  newer  branches  of  study,  or 
at  least  must  allow  such  studies  to  be  elected  m  place 
of  the  severer  studies,  hitherto  enforced  as  a  condition 
for  a  degree. 

The  Cornell  University,  at  Ithaca,  has  attracted  much 
attention  in  consequence  of  the  very  liberal  gifts  of  the 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


19 


gentleman  whose  name  it  bears,  the  magnificent  appro- 
priation to  it  of  the  college  land  scrip  of  the  State  of  New 
York,  the  great  prominence  with  which  its  concern  and 
the  principles  of  its  organization  have  been  urged 
upon  the  notice  of  the  public  by  means  of  the  press, 
the  very  great  freedom  and  confidence  with  which  it 
has  criticised  the  traditional  sj^irit  and  methods  of  the 
older  colleges,  and  the  largeness  of  its  promises  of  im- 
provement and  reform.  All  these  circumstances  com- 
bined with  the  peculiarities  of  its  organization,  or  rather 
of  its  proposed  organization,  have  been  very  fruitful 
themes  for  a  large  number  of  editorial  announcements, 
discourses  and  advertisements,  in  which  the  merits  of 
the  Cornell  University  have  been  set  forth  in  striking 
contrast  with  the  defects  and  disadvantages  of  the  col- 
lege and  university  systems  which  had  previously  com- 
manded the  confidence  of  a  large  portion  of  the  Amer- 
can  public. 

Its  peculiar  features  are,  first  of  all,  the  comprehen- 
sion of  its  instruction  under  two  divisions,  viz :  the  di- 
vision of  special  sciences  and  arts  in  the  six  departments 
|0f  Agriculture  ;  the  Mechanic  Arts  ;  Civil  Engineering  ; 
Military  Engineering  and  Tactics  ;  Mining  and  Practical 
Geology ;  History,  Social  and  Political  Science  ;  and  the 
division  of  Science,  Literature,  and  the  Arts  in  general. 
This  last  embraces  7?7'^  general  courses  of  study ;  (i) 
the  Modern  Course  of  four  years  ^  in  which  "  the  place 
and  labor  usually  given  to  ancient  languages"  "  will  be 
mainly  assigned"  "  to  modern  languages,"  attached  to 
_ which  is  the  Modern  Course  abridged  to  three  years  ;  (2) 
the  Combined  Course  in  which  the  languages  studied  will 
be  Latin  and  German,  which  is  also   abridged  to  three 


20  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

years  ;  (3)  the  ^^ Classical  Course^'  of  four  years  ;  (4)  the 
Scientific  Course  of  three  years,   also  abridged  to   two 
years  ;  (5)  the  Optional  Course.     Different  degrees  and 
testimonials  are  given  to  those  who  attend  these  courses, 
but  the  Bachelor's  degree  is  given  indiscriminately  to  all 
who  have  completed  any  of  the  courses  of  four  years. 
The  qualifications  for  admission  are  the  possession  of  a 
good  common  English  education,  and  the  mental,  moral 
and  physical  capacity  to  pursue  to  advantage  the  course 
of  study  on  which  the  candidate  proposes  to  attend. 
For  candidates  imperfectly  prepared,  special  provision  is 
also  made,  so  that  "  good  health,  good  habits,  and   a 
good  thorough  education  in  the  common  English  branch- 
es, are  thus  the  simple  requirements  for  admission."  The 
scope  of  the  University  is  expressed  in  the  words  of 
Mr.  Cornell :  "  I  would  found  an  institution  where  any 
person  can  find  instruction  in  any  study."     The  features 
of  the  University  are  the  following  :  the  practical  utility 
of  the  education  and  studies,  university  liberty  of  choice, 
"  the  absence  of  fetichism  in  regard  to  any  single  course 
of  study,"  especial  prominence  of  studies    in   History, 
Political   and   Social  Science,  the  absence  of  "  a  petty 
daily  marking  system,"  a  close  and  manly  intercourse 
and  sympathy  between   Faculty  and  students,  careful 
provision  for  the  s  tudy  of  Human  Anatomy,  Physiology, 
and  Hygiene,  and  the  absence  of  sectarian  influence,  in 
consistency  with  the  promotion  of  Christian  civilization 
as  the  highest  aim  of  the  University.     The  scope  and 
features  of  the  University  in  general  are  its  signal  and 
certain  exemption  from  the  evils  which  are  observed  in 
the  colleges  ;  all  of  which,  it  is  assumed,  can  be  happily 
avoided  by  the  sounder  principles  of  organization   and 
of   administration  by  which  it  is  to  be  regulated. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  21 

Harvard  College  has  a  second  time  adopted  the  elec- 
tive system  on  the  most  liberal  scale,  and  it  has  begun 
to  advertise  freely  in  the  newspapers  that  its  studies 
"  are  largely  elective."  How  largely  the  studies  are 
elective  may  be  learned  from  its  Annual  Catalogue  ; 
how  wisely,  can  be  determined  only  by  experiment. 
The  students  are  held  to  a  prescribed  curriculum  till 
the  end  of  Freshman  year,  at  which  time  it  is  possible 
for  any  one  to  terminate  his  study  of  both  Greek  and 
Latin,  though  not  of  the  Mathematics — which  is  ap- 
parently a  mere  incident  of  the  arrangement  of  the 
hours  of  study.  Ample  provision  is  made  for  the  elec- 
tive study  of  the  three  till  the  end  of  the  course,  but  it 
is  possible  for  the  student  to  go  on  to  the  end  of  the 
course,  with  his  chief  attention  devoted  to  the  modern 
languages  and  the  physical  sciences,  history  and  philos- 
ophy, receiving  for  proficiency  similar  honors  and  the 
same  degree  at  the  end,  with  those  who  jDursue  what  has 
usually  been  considered  the  severer  curriculum.  So 
far  as  we  can  gather  from  the  plan  as  explained  to  the 
public,  the  election  is  not  between  courses  of  studies 
having  an  order  and  progress  defined  by  obvious  char- 
acteristics and  controlled  by  some  distinct  purpose, 
but  it  is  between  one  set  of  studies  and  another  from 
term  to  term,  according  to  the  capricious  or  wise  judg- 
ment of  the  student.  In  this  particular  Harvard  falls 
behind  most  of  the  other  universities  and  colleges  which 
have  adopted  the  elective  system. 

The  Michigan  University  was  one  of  the  earliest  to 
deviate  from  the  old  and  traditionary  methods,  and  its 
success  has  been  frequently  cited  as  a  decisive  argu- 
ment in  favor  of  radical  reform.     If,  however,  its  courses 


22  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

of  study  and  instruction  are  carefully  scrutinized,  it  will 
be  found  to  be  on  the  whole  very  old-fashioned  and 
conservative  in  its  most  distinguishing  features.  It  has 
a  regular  curriculum  of  classical  studies,  etc.,  such  as  is 
usually  prescribed  in  the  other  colleges.  This  only 
admits  to  the  Bachelor's  degee.  It  has  another  curricu- 
lum called  the  Scientific  in  which  the  French  language 
and  special  sciences  take  the  place  of  classical  studies. 
It  has  another,  called  Latin  and  Scientific  ;  another  of 
Civil  Engineering  ;  another  of  Mining  Engineering.  It 
provides  also  that  students  who  do  not  desire  to  become 
candidates  for  a  degree,  may,  if  qualified  to  pursue  any 
study,  do  so  in  connection  with  any  of  the  classes.  Be- 
sides these  curricula  and  schools,  there  are  the  very 
numerously  attended  schools  of  Law  and  Medicine. 
The  system  when  closely  examined  does  not  differ 
materially  from  that  of , any  college  which  is  provided 
with  a  scientific  and  technological  school,  except  that 
when  the  studies  of  the  different  schools  coincide  they 
are  conducted  by  the  same  instructor.  In  all  of  its 
departments  the  elective  studies  are  very  few,  for  those 
who  are  candidates  for  any  of  the  degrees  in  the  arts  or 
sciences. 

The  Michigan  University  has  however  been  the  oft- 
used  text  upon  which  a  multitude  of  homilies  have  been 
preached  in  favor  of  what  is  called  the  university  as 
contrasted  with  the  college  system.  The  number  of  per- 
sons who  have  been  attracted  to  its  professional  schools, 
many  doubtless  by  its  almost  gratuitous  instruction,  has 
given  it  the  appearance  of  greater  prosperity,  as  a  train- 
ing university  in  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences,  than  the 
facts  would  warrant.     Its  literary  and  general  courses 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  23 

combined,  though  very  ably  administered,  have  not  been 
preeminent  in  point  of  numbers. 

We  ought  not  to  omit  to  mention  that  Union  College 
was  the  first  which  successfully  introduced  and  perse- 
veringly  maintained  the  second  or  parallel  course  of 
study,  mainly  scientific  and  practical,  which  has  so 
often  been  talked  of  as  a  desideratum  that  had  been 
long  delayed. 

Th'e  distrust  of  our  colleges  and  of  their  system  of 
education  which  is  now  so  freely  expressed,  and  has  led 
to  many  of  the  changes  referred  to,  has  been  greatly 
stimulated,  and  is  likely  to  be  still  more  effectively  re- 
inforced by  the  zealous  and  passionate  assaults  that 
have  of  late  been  made  upon  the  great  schools  and 
universities  of  England.  These  critical  assaults  have 
appeared  in  almost  every  possible  form,  from  the  pon- 
derous blue-books,  that  embody  the  reports  of  Parlia- 
mentary^ commissioners,  down  to  the  spiteful  and  capri- 
cious attacks  of  titled  and  untitled  demagogues ;  from 
the  elaborate  volume  of  £ssays,  written  by  experi- 
enced teachers  and  accomplished  Fellows  of  the  col- 
leges at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  down  to  the  ill-natured 
and  ignorant  thrusts  of  half-educated  and  conceited 
sciolists  and  scientists.  It  is  scarce  matter  of  wonder, 
in  one  point  of  view,  that  some  ill-informed  persons 
should  imagine  that  the  studies  and  discipline  of  the 
American  colleges  are  the  same  with  those  of  the  Eng- 
lish schools  and  universities,  and  should  draw  effective 
arguments  from  the  imagined  uprising  of  the  English 
people  against  scholastic  traditions,  to  the  propriety 
and   necessity  of  our   doing  the  same   with  what  are 


24  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

supposed  to  be  similar  burdens.  It  is,  however,  a 
matter  of  wonder  that  some  who  use  such  arguments 
should  fail  either  to  see  or  to  confess  that  the  points  of 
difference  are  so  great  between  the  two  as  to  forbid 
rather  than  warrant  the  inferences  which  are  derived 
from  them,  or  that  any  one  should  adopt  the  motto 
which  Mr.  Atkinson  has  prefixed  to  his  very  clever 
essay — more  ingenious  than  ingenuous  as  it  seems  to 
us — miitato  no77iine  de  ie  fabula  7iarratur. 

It  seems  to  us  that  it  is  only  fair  for  the  American 
assailants  of  the  American  colleges  to  remember  that 
it  is  only  a  very  small  number  of  the  most  violent  of  the 
English  reformers  who  contend  for,  or  would  even  suf- 
fer any  serious  diminution  from  the  prominence  given 
to  the  classics  in  a  course  of  public  education.  The 
Hon.  Robert  Lowe  did,  indeed,  not  think  it  unworthy 
of  his  character  to  use  his  fine  classical  learning  and  re- 
putation in  contemptuously  depreciating  the  study  of 
the  ancient  languages  and  the  ancient  writers,  in  com- 
parison with  the  study  of  the  modern  tongues  and  litera- 
ture. But  his  was  a  capricious  escapade  of  a  rather 
uncertain  leader,  and  it  should  weigh  but  little  when 
set  off  against  the  deliberate  utterances  of  that  steady- 
going  wheel-horse  among  the  reformers,  John  Stuart 
Mill,  himself  not  a  university  man,  in  his  inaugural  ad- 
dress at  the  university  of  St.  Andrews.  In  that  address 
Mr.  Mill  says  :  "  The  only  languages,  then,  and  the  only 
literature,  to  which  I  would  allow  a  place  in  the  ordinary 
curriculum,  are  those  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans  ;  and 
to  these  I  would  preserve  the  position  in  it  which  they 
at  present  occupy.  That  position  is  justified  by  the 
great  value  in  education,  of  knowing  well  some  other 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  25 

cultivated  language  and  literature  than  one's  own,  and 
by  the  peculiar  value  of  those  particular  languages  and 
literature."  (p.  22.)  That  Mr.  Mill  is  an  earnest  advocate 
for  reform  in  all  the  other  particulars  which  his  associ- 
ates insist  upon,  is  evident  from  another  passage  which 
sums  up  many  pages  of  illustration  and  argument.  "  I 
will  say  confidently  that  if  the  two  classical  languages 
were  properly  taught,  there  would  be  no  need  whatever 
for  ejecting  them  from  the  school  course,  in  order  to 
have  sufficient  time  for  everything  else  that  need  be  in- 
cluded therein."  (p.  16.) 

Mr.  Farrar  also,  the  editor  of  the  very  significant  and 
able  volume,  entitled  Essays  on  a  Liberal  Ediicaiio7i,  to 
which  we  have  already  referred,  says  in  his  lecture  be- 
fore the  Royal  Institution  :  "  I  must  avow  my  distinct 
conviction  that^our  present  system  of  exclusively  classical 
educatioti  as  a  whole,  and  carried  out  as  we  do  carry 
it  out,  is  a  deplorable  failure."  (Lecture^  etc.,  p.  18.) 
"  That  Greek  and  Latin — taught  in  a  shorter  period, 
and  in  a  more  comprehensive  manner — should  remain 
as  the  solid  basis  of  a  liberal  education,  we  are  all  (or 
nearly  all)  agreed  ;  none  can  hold  such  an  opinion  more 
strongly  than  myself;  but  why  can  it  not  be  frankly 
recognized  that  an  education  confi^ied  to  Greek  and 
Latin  is  a  failure,  because  it  is  an  anachronism  ?"  {Ibid^ 
p.  24.)  These  passages  must  be  accepted  as  decisive  by 
those  among  us  who  are  willing  to  learn  from  their  own 
declarations,  what  are  the  real  sentiments  and  aims  of 
most  of  the  reformers  of  school  and  university  educa- 
tion in  England.  It  ought  not  to  be  necessary  to 
cite  them,  however,  in  order  to  enable  many  among  us 
to  judge  for  themselves  what  are  the  methods  and  what 


26  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

the  Studies  of  these  schools.  Any  well  informed  man 
ought  to  know  that  they  are  materially  different  from 
the  studies  and  methods  which  prevail  among  ourselves. 
We  do  not  say  that  our  own  methods  are  perfect,  or 
that  we  have  not  inherited  and  retained  some  of  the  er- 
rors and  defects  which  are  so  excessive  in  the  English 
schools  ;  but  we  do  insist  that  the  American  colleges 
should  not  be  confounded  with  the  English  public 
schools  or  universities,  in  respect  to  their  defects,  as 
they  certainly  would  not  claim  to  possess  all  the  excel- 
lencies which  these  institutions  may  fairly  assert  for 
themselves. 

That  there  may  be  no  question  or  mistake  in  respect 
to  this  matter,  we  will  briefly  touch  upon  those  features 
in  the  English  institutions  which  have  been  subjected 
to  special  criticism  in  the  polemic  against  them  which 
is  now  so  actively  prosecuted  in  the  mother  country. 
The  first  of  these  is  the  excessive  attention, — in  some 
cases  the  almost  exclusive  attention, — which  is  given  to 
the  study  of  the  classics.  In  connection  with  this,  the 
methods  of  learning  and  of  teaching,  especially  the 
enforcement  of  composition,  eminently  the  composition 
of  Latin  verses,  have  been  very  earnestly  assailed, 
and  somewhat  feebly  defended.  The  comparatively 
little  attention  given  to  Natural  History  and  Physics, 
as  well  as  to  the  Mathematical,  Historical,  Moral,  and 
Political  Sciences,  in  the  great  schools  generally,  and  in 
the  University  of  Oxford  in  particular,  as  well  as  the 
preponderance  of  Physics  and  the  Mathematics  at  Cam- 
bridge, have  also  been  abundantly  discussed.  The 
meager  requirements  for  the  "  pass"  examinations  in 
both  universities,  and  the  frightful  excess  to  which  the 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  27 

coaching  and  cramming  processes  are  carried  in  pre- 
paring candidates  for  these  examinations,  with  the  de- 
cay of  the  normal  efficiency  of  the  tutorial  office,  and 
the  consequent  idleness  of  seventy  per  cent. — as  it  is 
said — of  the  residents  and  graduates  of  the  universi- 
ties, have  been  thoroughly  discussed  and  freely  ex- 
posed. As  incidental  to  these,  the  excessive  develop- 
ment of  a  taste  for  gymnastic  sports  on  the  one  hand, 
and  the  systematic  indulgence  in  foolish  extravagance 
or  vicious  dissipation  on  the  other,  have  been  the  sub- 
jects of  severe  comments. 

The  general  neglect  of  the  speculative  sciences  and 
of  the  investigation  of  principles  in  their  application  to 
all  branches  of  knowledge  is  also  noticed  by  some  very 
sagacious  critics  as  a  defect  in  the  studies  of  those  who 
read  for  honors.  It  is  urged  with  great  force  that  ad- 
mirable as  is  the  diligence  of  those  who  read  earnestly, 
and  excellent  in  some  respects  as  are  the  results  of 
their  reading,  ^'•et  the  absence  of  a  truly  philosophical 
or  rhythmical  culture  is  seen  in  the  excessively  sophis- 
ileal — in  the  sense  of  the  ancient  Greeks — character  of 
the  culture  that  is  attained,  as  well  as  in  the  very  ex- 
tensive prevalence  of  One  sided  tendencies  in  the  two 
extremes  of  ultra  anglicanism  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
positivism  on  the  other.  The  compulsory  residence  of 
all  the  undergraduates,  the  pedantic  strictness  in  the 
forms  and  the  notorious  laxness  of  the  administratioa 
of  the  college  system,  with  the  almost  entire  disuse  of 
the  professorial  function,  and  of  university  freedom, 
are  topics  of  almost  universal  complaint.  The  reme- 
dies earnestly  recommended,  are  the  abandonment  of 
the  college  system,  wholly  or  in  part,  the  allowance  of 


28  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

free  attendance  upon  the  university  lectures  to  lodgers 
in  the  town,  and  of  the  freest  competition  for  the  valu- 
able honors  and  emoluments  which  the  universities  have 
in  their  gift.  All  the  reformers  advocate  the  increase 
of  the  number  of  university  chairs,  and  a  very  consid- 
erable enlargement  of  the  course  of  instruction  in  re- 
spect to  the  subjects  treated  and  the  range  of  investiga- 
tion. A  few  insist  on  the  abolition  of  all  religious  and 
ecclesiastical  tests,  and  on  a  reorganization  of  the 
whole  system  of  prizes,  honors,  and  emoluments. 

It  is  obvious  that  while  the  discussion  of  school  and 
university  reforms  in  England  must  involve  a  great  va- 
riety of  principles  and  topics  which  are- of  direct  appli- 
cation to  the  changes  proposed  or  effected  in  the 
American  colleges,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the 
American  colleges  have  in  some  most  important  re- 
spects either  escaped  or  outgrown  not  a  few  of  the 
most  important  evils  under  which  the  English  institu- 
tions continue  to  labor.  The  American  colleges  give 
great,  perhaps  excessive,  attention  to  the  physical  and 
practical  sciences.  They  give  instruction  by  lectures 
as  well  as  by  tutors.  Their  examinations  are  frequent 
and  severe.  They  do  not  neglect  the  study  of  the 
principles  of  metaphysical,  moral,  and  political  science. 
Their  supervision  of  the  manners  and  morals  of  the 
students,  and  their  care  for  their  religious  culture,  are 
thought  by  many  to  be  over  strict  and  excessive. 

We  return  to  our  subject,  "  the  American  Colleges 
and  the  American  Public  ;"  or,  to  reverse  the  phrase, 
as  politeness  requires,  "  the  American  Public  and  the 
American  Colleges."     The  phrase  as  changed  reminds 


AND   THE    AMERICAN    PUBIJC.  29 

US  that  it  is  our  first  duty  to  pay  our  respects  to  the 
tribunal  before  which  tlie  colleges  are  summoned  to  ap- 
pear. This  tribunal  it  may  be  proper  for  us  briefly  to 
characterize  without  either  questioning  its  jurisdiction 
or  being  guilty  of  "contempt  of  court." 

The  tribunal,  in  the  present  instance,  is  both  assailant 
and  judge  ;  uniting  generally  the  functions  of  the  two 
in  the  persons  of  the  same  speakers  and  writers.  The 
tribunal,  consists,  first  of  all,  of  a  limited  class  of  lec- 
turers and  writers  known  as  educational  irformers,  whose 
stock  in  trade  consists  of  a  scanty  outfit  of  a  few  facts 
imperfectly  conceived  and  incorrectly  recited,  in  respect 
to  the  modes  of  education  pursued  in  the  middle  ages. 
It  is  the  profession  or  trade  of  these  men  to  assail  the 
colleges  of  this  country  as  medieval,  cloistered,  scholas- 
tic, and  monkish.  The  study  of  the  classics  is  denounced 
by  the  cheap  epithets  of  antiquated,  useless,  and  un- 
practical. The  study  of  the  mathematics, — which  these 
ignorants  fail  to  see  is  itself  the  most  unpractical  of  all, 
and  which  it  is  lucky  that  they  do  not  know  was  com- 
mended by  Plato  in  exalted  language  as  tending  to 
withdraw  the  mind  from  sense  and  utility, — is  recom- 
mended as  practical  by  way  of  contrast,  because  some 
mysterious  connection  is  supposed  to  exist  between  it 
and  the  power  to  build  bridges,  to  construct  railways, 
and  to  drive  mining  shafts.  The  sciences  of  nature,  as 
they  are  called,  /.  e.,  the  sciences  of  matter,  are  regard- 
ed as  the  only  sciences  which  are  either  real  or  useful. 
Physiology  from  the  material  standpoint  is  the  only 
philosophy  or  psychology  that  is  considered  worthy  the 
name.  Of  literature  such  persons  have  only  indefinite 
or  low  conceptions  as   a  subject  of  interest  or  critical 


30 


THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


study.  A  traveling  lecturer  is,  in  their  view,  the  model 
of  a  university  professor.  Superficial  and  second-hand 
knowledge,  exaggerated  declamation,  paradoxical  an- 
tithesis, and  sensational  extravagance  are  the  desired 
characteristics  of  university  instruction.  There  are  but 
few  of  these  downright  quacks,  it  is  true,  but  of  better 
and  wiser  men  there  are  many  more  than  a  few,  who 
borrow  some  of  the  principles  and  methods  by  which 
these  charlatans  are  characterized.  Some  of  these  are 
men  of  whom  we  had  a  right  to  expect  better  things. 

Another  portion  of  the  public  who  are  so  ready 
to  prejudge  the  colleges  and  their  system  disadvanta- 
geously  is  drawn  from  that  very  numerous  and  most 
respectable  class  of  self-made  men  who  have  risen  to 
eminence  without  a  collegiate  education.  Many  of  this 
class  take  the  first  rank  in  our  political,  commercial, 
and  social  life,  and  their  success  is  a  perpetual  testi- 
mony to  the  truth,  that  neither  a  college  degree  nor  a 
college  education  do  of  necessity  secure  eminence,  and 
that  both  united  must  be  followed  by  that  practical 
training  of  actual  life  and  contact  with  men,  to  which 
the  school  and  the  college  are  only  the  introduction. 
A  very  large  class  of  these  self-educated  men  are  pain- 
fully -sensitive  of  the  disadvantages  under  which  they 
suffer  from  lack  of  early  scholastic  training.  Many  of 
them  have  labored  assiduously  and  with  eminent  suc- 
cess to  correct  these  disadvantages  by  careful  private 
studies  in  the  languages,  mathematics,  and  philosophy. 
As  a  class  they  are  the  most  generous  sujDporters  of  the 
higher  learning,  and  of  literary  institutions  as  admirably 
adapted  to  prepare  for  professional  and  business  life. 
Their  zeal  and  liberality  in  support  of  the  higher  edu- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


31 


cation  of  the  country  jDuts  to  shame  many  of  the  Hberally 
educated,  who  are  no  less  wealthy  than  themselves. 
This  liberal  and  enlightened  testimony  of  theirs  to  the 
value  of  a  culture  of  which  they  feel  the  need,  ought  to 
be  received  as  the  decisive  judgment  of  practical  men. 
Others  of  them  indulge  a  jealous  contempt  of  all  disci- 
plinary training  whatever,  and  find  in  their  own  suc- 
cess a  satisfactory  argument  for  the  uselessness  of  any 
other  than  the  so-called  practical  or  useful  studies,  as 
well  as  a  decisive  refutation  of  all  that  can  be  urged  in 
the  defense  of  any  other. 

Self-made  or  self-educated  men  in  this  country  are 
also  very  largely  connected  with  the  newspaper  press  ; 
for  the  reason  that  the  editor's  vocation  is  one  of  the 
most  inviting  in  its  rewards  to  those  who  have  literary 
or  political  aspirations.  It  also  promises  success  in  the 
shortest  time  and  itself  furnishes  an  efficient  education 
in  the  exercise  of  the  mind  and  the  pen  in  literary  es- 
says. It  is  not  surprising  that  this  class  of  editors 
should  be  very  ready  to  accept  any  misconception  of 
the  college  system,  which  is  either  innocently  enter- 
tained or  ignorantly  propagated  in  the  communit}^  Nor 
is  it  very  surprising  that  they  should  be  often  tempted 
to  make  the  colleges  and  the  college  system  prominent 
topics  of  criticism.  Many  of  the  colleges  are  old  and 
respectable  from  the  associations  and  traditions  of  their 
histor}\  They  are  the  objects  of  love  and  affection  to 
multitudes  in  the  community.  They  are  the  pride  and 
joy  of  the  enthusiastic  youth  who  breathe  their  exhilar- 
ant  spirit  and  participate  in  their  exuberant  life.  It 
must  also  be  confessed  that  they  are  far  from  being 
perfect   in    their   constitution    or   their  administration- 


32  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

Both  of  these  features  make  them  attractive  as  subjects 
for  extemporaneous  criticism  and  objects  of  attack. 
Whether  they  are  regarded  by  our  imaginative  Quixotes, 
(to  whom  there  is  rarely  wanting  an  acquiescent  Sancho, 
perhaps  an  Artiiun  Baccaiaureus),  as  venerable  castles 
that  have  too  long  been  objects  of  servile  reverence,  or 
as  windmills  which  largely  fill  the  public  eye — and  grind 
proportionately  but  little  corn — the  bravery  of  attacking 
them  is  all  the  same,  and  it  has  stimulated  many  knights 
of  the  press  to  the  pleasurable  advenim^e  of  making  the 
assault.  The  patent  and  obtrusive  follies  of  foolish  and 
roystering  youth  are  a  very  deserving  and  a  very  easy 
theme  for  severe  editorial  comments.  The  aim  that 
could  not  successfully  direct  a  rifle  to  a  vital  point  can 
easily  discharge  a  blunderbuss  at  the  door  of  a  barn. 

It  is  not  a  little  amusing  to  notice  how  confidently  an 
old  college  which  has  had  some  reputation  for  science 
and  culture  is  coolly  depreciated  in  some  ambitious  jour- 
nal as  little  better  than  a  "  high  school"  in  its  aims  and 
methods,  while  some  new  institution  that  in  more  than 
one  sense  is  not  yet  "  out  of  the  woods"  is  as  confi- 
dently extolled  as  alone  following  the  liberal  methods 
of  the  university.  If  we  ask  who  Avrites  all  this  wis- 
dom, we  may  not  always  be  able  to  answer.  But  we 
usually  can  say  with  truth,  that  it  w^as  indited  by  some 
one  who  has  never  ceased  to  be  vexed  at  the  injustice 
of  the  fates  which  denied  him  a  college  education,  or  is 
moved  with  envy  at  the  fancied  superciliousness  of  those 
who  have  received  a  college  diploma,  or  is  filled  with 
conceit  that  he  has  outstripped,  in  the  honors  and  emol- 
uments of  life,  so  many  graduates,  or  bears  some  mean 
grudge  towards  the  Alma  Mater  whose  good  name  he 
dishonors. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  33 

Another  important  element  in  this  varying  and  shift- 
ing tribunal  before  which  the  colleges  are  summoned  to 
answer,  consists  of  the  many  graduates  of  these  col- 
leges who  have  received  little  advantage  from  their  col- 
lege training,  or  are  unconscious  of  the  advantages 
which  they  have  received  in  fact.  The  question  very 
naturally  presents  itself  at  this  point,  how  it  can  hap- 
pen if  the  college  system  is  so  excellent  itself,  that  so 
many  graduates  of  colleges  are  at.  the  present  moment 
so  clamorous  for  college  reform  ?  Nay,  how  is  it  that 
they  constitute  so  large  and  so  important  an  element 
of  the  tribunal  before  which  these  colleges  are  sum- 
moned to  plead  their  cause  ?  We  will  endeavor  to  an- 
swer these  questions,  premising  that  we  ourselves  admit 
and  contend  that  the  college  system  and  its  administra- 
tion require  and  admit  some  important  changes. 

In  answer  to  these  questions,  we  would  say  in  the 
first  place,  that  many  college  graduates  are  not  aware 
of  the  extent  of  the  advantages  which  they  have  derived 
from  their  public  education.  All  processes  that  are 
properly  gymnastic  and  disciplinary  perform  a  service 
and  impart  benefits  of  which  the  recipient  is  uncon- 
scious at  the  time  of  receiving  them,  and  which,  unless 
he  has  given  special  attention  to  education  as  a  study, 
he  cannot  fully  appreciate  by  subsequent  reflection. 
The  mental  growth  to  which  they  contribute  is  so  slow 
and  insensible,  that  the  fact  that  growth  is  achieved 
and  by  the  means  employed,  is  very  rarely  noticed  at 
the  time  of  its  occurrence.  Let  it  be  conceded  that 
some  studies  must  be  chiefly  disciplinary,  and  it  by  no 
means  follows,  because  the  graduates  of  colleges  are 
not  distinctly  aware  of  the  value  of  the  course  by  which 


34  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

they  have  been  trained,  that  the  course  was  not  the 
best  conceivable  for  the  very  persons  who  are  the  leastT' 
sensible  of  what  it  has  done  for  them.  Again,  every 
system  of  education  supposes  docility,  cooperation,  and 
effort  on  the  part  of  the  pupil.  No  scheme  of  educa- 
tion can  be  efficient  without  these.  We  add  also  the 
very  obvious  but  almost  forgotten  truth,  that  no  system, 
however  skillfully  framed  or  wisely  administered,  has 
ever  been  known  actually  to  secure  such  zeal  and  en- 
tnusiasm  as  is  required  for  the  best  effects.  While  we 
concede  that  one  system  of  studies  and  discipline  is 
better  fitted  than  another  to  awaken  and  sustain  the 
interest  of  students,  we  may  safely  assert  that  there  are 
many  college  graduates  who  reproach  the  college  sys- 
tem for  not  having  done  more  for  them,  who  would  not 
have  the  hardihood  to  affirm  that  any  selection  of  stud- 
ies, any  course  of  discipline,  or  any  wisdom  of  instruc- 
tors would  have  exorcised  the  indolence  and  self-indul- 
gence, the  careless  and  irresponsible  spirit  which 
possessed  them    in   their  college   days. 

There  are  others,  and  these  are  not  few,  who  were 
bent  on  self-improvement  in  their  college  life,  and  were 
not  unwilling  to  labor,  whose  want  of  success  was 
chiefly  owing  to  their  very  inadequate  preparation  for 
its  studies.  Any  course  of  public  education  must  as- 
sume or  prescribe  some  previous  knowledge  and  cul- 
ture, and  those  who  persist  in  beginning  or  continuing 
their  college  life  without  such  preparation,  have  only 
themselves  or  their  friends  to  blame  that  the  college 
course  benefited  them  so  little. 

There  are  some  graduates,  however,  who  were  earn- 
est, laborious,  and  successful  in  their  college   studies. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  35 

who  are  disposed  earnestly  to  criticise  the  course  which 
was  prescribed,  because  it  did  not  fit  them  more  di- 
rectly for  the  calling  or  duties  of  their  actual  life. 
Such  contend  that  a  more  direct  adaptation  of  its  stud- 
ies to  the  foreseen  wants  of  the  student  would  awaken 
greater  enthusiasm  and  secure  far  more  vigorous  and 
successful  work.  It  is  natural,  when  a  graduate  comes 
to  any  special  employment  or  duty,  that  he  should  regret 
that  his  college  studies  did  not  train  him  directly  for  it. 
He  may  desire  to  travel  or  study  in  a  foreign  country, 
or  his  professional  or  commercial  success  would  be  fa- 
cilitated if  he  were  master  of  French,  German,  or  Span- 
ish. He  is  very  likely  to  exclaim,  "  Would  that  the 
time  which  I  wasted  in  the  tiresome  Latin  or  hateful 
Greek  had  been  spent  in  learning  the  living  language 
which  I  now  have  occasion  to  use  !"  Or  let  him  painfully 
feel  his  deficiencies  in  the  command  of  a  good  English 
style  or  in  familiarity  with  English  literature,  and  he 
breaks  out  into  a  similar  impatient  reproach  that  his 
Alma  Mater  did  not  foresee  and  provide  for  his  future 
wants  in  this  particular,  instead  of  cramming  him  with 
Greek  and  Latin  syntax  and  etymology.  Or  it  may  be 
that  he  is  a  manufacturer  or  trader,  and  he  would  give 
twice  or  ten  times  the  cost  of  his  college  education  if 
he  were  a  proficient  in  chemistry,  physics,  or  navigation. 
Those  who  make  these  complaints  leave  out  of  view 
much  which  they  ought  to  consider,  and  especially  that 
it  is  often  impossible  to  foresee  what  a  man's  employ- 
ment in  life  will  be.  Conceding  that  a  college  course 
may  be  both  professional  and  disciplinary,  it  might  be  a 
worse  mistake  for  a  man  to  have  studied  German  and 
find  that  he  needs  to  use  only   Spanish,  than  to  have 


36  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

studied  Latin  and  find  that  he  needs  either  German  or 
Spanish,  or  to  have  studied  chemistry  or  physics  when 
he  requires  a  knowledge  of  English  or  French  litera- 
ture. These  considerations  bring  us  back  to  the  old 
doctrine  so  offensive  to  a  few  college  educated  men  that 
the  college  course  is  preeminently  designed  to  give 
power  to  acquire  and  to  think,  rather  than  to  impart 
special  knowledge  or  special  discipline.  But  on  this  we 
will  not  dwell  at  present,  but  only  remind  those  who 
utter  these  critical  complaints  that  they  do  not  always 
think  of  the  very  great  advantage  they  have  gained  for 
acquiring  German,  French,  Spanish,  chemistr}',  physics, 
and  even  business  judgment  and  skill,  above  those  who 
have  not  been  thus  disciplined.  Most  of  all,  would  we 
ask  them  to  notice  whether  if  their  sense  of  the  nnport- 
ance  to  themselves  of  German,  French,  chemistry,  etc., 
had  been  as  keen  while  they  were  in  college  as  it  is  at 
present,  they  would  not  or  could  not  have  mastered  these 
special  studies,  in  addition  to  the  Latin  and  Greek  which 
the  college  prescribed.  Without  such  a  sense  of  their 
importance,  their  mastery  even  of  these  branches  might 
not  have  been  so  complete  as  they  find  to  be  needful, 
and  the  imperfect  knowledge  obtained  might  have  been 
purchased  at  the  cost  of  a  feebler  power  to  acquire, 
understand,  and  apply  not  only  these  useful  studies,  but 
all  other  knowledge  and  skill.  Why  should  it  be  so 
easy  for  a  man  to  forget  that  when  in  college  he  was 
something  of  a  boy,  and  to  cheat  himself  with  the  fond 
persuasion  that  any  system  of  study  would  have  en- 
dowed him  with  the  wisdom  and  forecast  of  a  man  ? 
Why  should  reflecting  men  persuade  themselve<>  that 
a  college  training  can  of  itself  give  the  wisdom  ox  age 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  37 

to  the  thoughtlessness  of  youth,  or  wake  up  that  enthu- 
siasm for  self-improvement  which  experience  only  can 
develop  ?  It  is  most  unreasonable,  unjust,  and  ungrate- 
ful, to  demand  of  any  system  of  education  or  institution 
of  learning  that  it  should  place  in  the  bow  of  the  ves- 
sel which  rushes  impetuously  before  the  breeze,  those 
glowing  "  stern  lights"  which,  even  for  the  earnest  and 
wise,  shine  so  sadly  and  so  luridly  over  the  path  which 
has  engulfed  so  many  good  resolutions,  so  many  vain 
essays,  so  many  ambitious  plans,  so  many  schemes  of 
study,  so  many  promised  acquisitions  of  knowledge 
and  power ;  which  path  for  the  vicious  and  indolent  is 
but  a  foaming  and  dreary  waste  of  ruin. 

There  are  still  others,  Ishmaelites  by  nature,  who 
from  sheer  perverseness  of  spirit,  or  rankling  jealousy, 
have  never  ceased  to  cherish  some  petty  spite  or  perma- 
nent hostility  toward  their  own  college  and  the  college 
system.  Now  and  then  a  communication  appears  in 
the  public  prints,  which  criticises  severely  the  college 
system,  especially  its  disciplinary  features,  by  gross  car- 
icature and  exaggeration  of  its  incidental  and  unavoid- 
able evils.  It  is  generally  easy  to  read  between  the 
lines  much  more  than  the  writer  has  penned.  To  the 
.signature,  "  A  Graduate/'  it  is  not  usually  unjust  to  ap- 
pend, "  who  himself  was  foremost  in  the  petty  deceits, 
the  debasing  tricks,  and  the  shuffling  superficialness, 
which  he  represents  as  common  to  the  whole  academic 
body."  The  woman  who  accuses  her  sex  as  univer- 
sally frail  cannot  herself  be  very  high  toned  in  per- 
sonal virtue. 

We  repeat  the  assertion  already  made  that  we  do  not 
regard   the  college  system   as  faultless.     On  the  con- 


38  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

trary,  we  believe  it  to  be  capable  of  some  very  import- 
ant modifications  and  improvements.  At  the  same 
time,  we  affirm  that  the  principal  features  by  which  it  is 
characterized  are  susceptible  of  a  triumphant  vindica- 
tion even  before  the  somewhat  miscellaneous  tribunal 
which  we  have  briefly  described.  We  propose  to  con- 
sider these  distinguishing  features,  and  to  enquire  how 
far  they  are  capable  of  vindication,  and  in  what  respects 
the  colleges  may  be  improved  either  in  their  constitu- 
tion or  their  administration.  We  will  consider,  first  of 
all,  the  studies  which  should  be  pursued. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  39 


II. 

THE  STUDIES   OF  THE  AMERICAN  COLLEGES. 

The  American  Colleges  have  been  from  the  first  and 
uniformly  schools  of  classical  study  and  learning.  A 
knowledge  of  the  elements  of  the  Greek  and  Latin  lan- 
guages has  been  required  for  admassion,  and  the  study  of 
the  two  has  been  enforced  upon  all,  as  the  condition  of 
receiving  the  Bachelor's  degree.  This  has  been  univer- 
sally true,  the  few  exceptions  being  too  inconsiderable 
to  deserve  attention.  The  enforced  study  of  these  lan- 
guages upon  all  the  students,  and  for  the  most  of  the 
undergraduate  course,  is  a  ground  of  complaint,  and  its 
advocates  are  required  to  give  anew  the  reasons  for  ad- 
hering to  it.  The  trustees  of  the  Cornell  University, 
while  they  shrink  from  the  charge  of  abandoning  or  de- 
preciating the  study  of  the  classics,  have  distinctly 
taken  the  position,  that  for  the  purposes  of  discipline 
and  culture,  the  study  of  the  French  and  German  clas- 
sics is  as  efficient  as  the  study  of  the  Greek  and  Latin, 
and  that  an  equivalent  knowledge  of  either  two  should 
entitle  the  student  to  the  same  college  honors.  The 
doctrine  is  also  very  extensively  taught  that  it  is  ques- 
tionable whether  the  study  of  language  is  better  fitted 
to  train  and  discipline  the  mind  in  early  life  than  the 
study  of  physics  or  history ;  and,  granting  that  it  is, 
that  it  does   not  follow    that   the    study   of  Greek   or 


40  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

Latin  is  uniformly  to  be  preferred  to  that  of  German 
or  French.  In  short,  the  mind  of  our  tribunal,  "  the 
American  public,"  is  at  present  undecided,  and  disturbed 
by  the  question  whether  the  colleges  do  not  commit  a 
grievous  wrong  in  enforcing  classical  studies  upon  all 
their  students,  and  in  giving  to  these  studies  especial 
honor. 

We  contend  not  only  that  the  colleges  have  judged 
rightly  in  giving  to  the  study  of  language  the  promi- 
nence which  it  receives,  and  that  the  Greek  and  Latin 
deserve  the  special  preeminence  which  has  been  as- 
signed them,  but  that  there  are  peculiar  reasons  why 
they  should  be  even  more  thoroughly  and  earnestly  cul- 
tivated than  they  have  been. 

Our  first  position  is,  that  for  the  years  appropriated 
to  school  and  college  training,  there  is  no  study  which 
is  so  well  adapted  to  mental  discipline  as  the  study  of 
language.  We  argue  this  from  the  fact  that  language 
is  the  chief  instrument  of  intelligence.  It  is  thought 
made  visible  and  clear,  not  merely  to  the  person  to 
whom  thoughts  are  to  be  conveyed,  but  to  the  person 
who  thinks  for  and  by  himself.  The  earliest  discrimi- 
nations and  memories  to  which  we 'are  tasked  by  nature 
are  those  which  are  involved  in  the  mastery  of  our 
mother  tongue.  It  is  true  the  observation  required  for 
the  education  of  the  eye  and  the  ear  and  in  the  control 
and  discipline  of  the  body,  involves  a  multitude  of 
"object  lessons,"  and  imposes  much  "object  teaching," 
but  it  can  scarcely  be  contended  that  this  discipline  of 
the  senses  requires  either  the  ailture  or  the  discipline  of 
the  intellect,  in  the  same  sense  as  does  that  attention 
to    language  which  is  required  in    learning  to    speak 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  41 

and  write  the  language  which  is  first  acquired.  We 
assume,  because  it  is  not  necessar}^  to  prove,  that  the 
most  conspicuously  intellectual  of  the  various  intel- 
lectual acts  of  infancy  and  childhood  are  exercised  upon 
language.  The  slowness  and  difficulty  with  which  some 
children  learn  to  use  language  is  correctly  taken  as  an 
infallible  sign  of  some  defect  or  late  development  of  in- 
tellectual power.  Nor  should  it  be  overlooked  that  the 
most  important  part  of  the  knowledge  which  we  acquire 
is  gained  through  Vv'ords  spoken  or  written,  and  that  the 
study  of  nature  itself  must  be  prosecuted  to  a  large 
extent  through  books.  Natural  history,  with  its  curi- 
ous facts  and  nice  discriminations,  geography  with  its 
descriptions  of  mountains  and  rivers,  of  distant  and  un- 
seen lands,  and  romance  with  its  fairy  tales,  so  exciting 
and  so  dear  to  the  child,  all  presuppose  and  exercise 
the  same  knowledge.  The  world  of  words  is,  in  its 
way,  as  important  and  as  real  to  the  child  as  the  world 
of  things  ;  and  most  of  the  intellectual  relations  of 
either  things  or  thoughts  can  only  be  discerned  by  first 
appr^h^niing  and  attending  to  the  relations  of  words. 
The  world  of  words  is  not  to  him,  as  is  often  charged, 
a  world  of  dead  and  dry  abstractions,  but  it  is  the  realm 
in  which  the  imagination  weaves  its  subtle  creations, 
and  disports  itself  in  the  delights  of  its  never  wearied 
romancing. 

As  school-life  begins  and  advances,  the  intellect  is 
tasked  and  disciplined  by  special  classes  of  studies,  the 
object  of  which  is  to  train  the  intellectual  power,  and  to 
furnish  it  with  facts  and  truths.  The  mind  is  constrained 
to  reflection  and  analysis.  From  acquisition,  observa- 
tion and  memory,  it  proceeds  to  be  trained  to  the  inde- 


42 


THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


pendent  judgments  of  science.  What  shall  be  the  sub- 
ject matter  upon  which  its  essays  are  employed  ?  Na- 
ture directs,  and  the  experience  of  many  generations 
has  confirmed  the  wisdom  of  her  intimations,  that 
language  is  the  appropriate  sphere  of  these  essays. 
The  mind  is  not  sufficiently  matured  to  study  nature 
in  a  scientific  way.  Of  natural  history  the  mind  at  this 
period  is  capable,  but  not  of  the  sciences  of  nature.  The 
facts  of  natural  history,  the  experiments  of  physics  and 
chemistry,  do  not  discipline  the  youth  enough  ;  the  sci- 
ence of  these  facts  involves  a  training  and  progress  which 
the  intellect  has  not  yet  attained.  The  mathematics 
present  a  most  important  field,  but  this  field  is  peculiar 
and  unique.  For  the  sphere  and  materials  of  what  we 
call  intellectual  training  we  are  shut  up  to  the  study  of 
language  ;  not  exclusively,  indeed,  for,  as  we  shall  show 
in  its  place,  facts  and  imaginations  should  both  instruct 
and  relieve  the  excessive  and  one-sided  strain  which  the 
discipline  of  language  ijivolves  ;  but  if  there  is  to  be 
discipline  in  the  eminent  sense,  it  must  be  eiTected  by 
means  of  the  study  of  language.  Whatever  substitute 
be  devised,  it  will  fail  of  imparting  that  peculiar  intel- 
lectual facility  and  power  which  this  study  secures. 

Assuming  that  the  study  of  language  is  the  most 
efficient  instrument  of  discipline,  we  assert  that  the 
study  of  the  classical  languages  should  be  universally 
preferred  to  any  other  as  a  means  of  discipline  in 
every  course  of  liberal  education,  and  should  continue 
to  be  made  prominent  and  necessary  in  the  American 
colleges.  When  we  assert  this,  we  do  not  assert  it  as  a 
self-evident  or  as  an  unquestioned  proposition.  It  is  a 
fair  question  to  ask,  and  a  reasonable  one  to  be  an- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  43 

swered,  "  Why  is  not  French  as  efficient  an  instrument 
of  discipUne  and  culture  as  the  Latin,  and  why  may  not 
German  be  substituted  for  the  Greek,  provided  each  be 
thoroughly  and  scientifically  studied  ?"  This  question 
is  fair  and  reasonable  to  discuss  and  answer,  because 
there  is  prima  facie  evidence  that  the  one  is  as  good  as 
the  other.  But  this  prima  facie  probability  is,  in  our 
opinion,  far  from  being  the  self-evident  certainty  which 
it  seems  to  be  in  the  judgment  of  our  accomplished  and 
admirable  friend  President  White,  when  he  says  "  It  is 
impossible  to  find  a  reason  why  a  man  should  be  made 
Bachelor  of  Arts  for  good  studies  in  Cicero  and  Taci- 
tus, and  Thucydides  and  Sophocles,  which  does  not 
equally  prove  that  he  ought  to  have  the  same  distinc- 
tion for  good  studies  in  Montesquieu  and  Corneille, 
and  Goethe  and  Schiller,  and  Dante  and  Shakspeare." 
(Letter  to  the  New  York  Tribune.)  With  all  due  respect 
to  the  President,  we  think  that  it  is  not  only  easy  to  find 
one  such  reason,  but  that  many  very  readily  suggest 
themselves.  First  of  all,  it  is  obvious,  we  think,  that 
the  student  who  makes  "  good  studies  "  in  Cicero  and 
Thucydides  will  be  likely,  in  the  present  state  of  society 
in  this  country,  also  to  make  "  good  studies  "  in  Montes- 
quieu, Goethe,  etc.,  etc.  We  cannot  take  so  narrow  a 
view  of  the  nature  and  operation  of  a  literary  education 
as  for  a  moment  to  consider  it  as  limited  to  a  four  years' 
course.  The  classical  student  who  is  zealous  enough  to 
do  well,  will  not,  in  the  present  state  of  knowledge,  and 
with  the  facilities  which  he  enjoys,  be  likely  to  fail  to 
learn  one  or  two  of  the  modern  languages  also.  If  he 
does  not  do  this  in  college,  should  he  have  special  occa- 
sion to  use  them  for  the  purposes  of  study,  travel,  or 


44  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

business,  he  will  have  acquired  the  power  to  learn  them 
with  comparative  ease  and  rapidity.  If  he  is  to  acquire 
several  Romanic  languages,  the  thorough  study  of  Latin 
will  even  be  a  positive  gain  in  their  acquisition,  so  far 
as  time  is  concerned.  Mr.  John  Stuart  Mill  goes  so  far 
as  to  assert  that  the  mastery  of  Latin  "  makes  it  easier 
to  learn  four  or  five  of  the  continental  languages  than  it 
is  to  learn  one  of  them  without  it."  Mr.  Mill  would 
make  little  or  no  provision  for  the  study  of  the  modern 
languages  in  the  university,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  to 
be  supposed  that  a  man  who  is  bred  a  scholar  will  study 
some  things  after  he  leaves  college,  and  especially  such 
of  the  modern  tongues  as  he  has  occasion  to  use. 

They  are  trite  sayings  that  all  modern  literature  goes 
back  to  these  languages  for  its  germs  and  beginnings, 
and  cannot  be  thoroughly  understood  without  a  knov.l- 
edge  of  these  languages  and  the  life  which  they  revecil  ; 
that  not  only  the  roots  of  the  languages  of  modern 
Europe  are  to  be  found  in  them,  but  the  roots  and 
germs  of  modern  literature  are  in  their  literature  as 
well ;  that  much  of  what  we  call  learning  is  written  in 
Latin  and  Greek  ;  that  Greek  is  the  original  language 
of  the  New  Testament,  and  records  the  beginnings 
of  the  history  of  the  Christian  church,  and  the  great 
truths  on  which  the  church  is  founded  ;  that  modern  sci- 
ence has  constructed  its  most  refined  and  complicated 
terminology  out  of  materials  derived  freshly  from  both 
languages,  and  the  Greek  in  particular.  But  to  all  these 
considerations  we  shall  be  met  with  the  reply,  that  the 
majority  of  the  men  who  are  educated  at  college  v/!ll 
never  become  scholars  at  all,  and  do  not  require  the 
education  which  is  fundamental  to  a  scholar's  knowl- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  45 

ed;je.  We  answer  that,  if  this  is  so,  the  majority  of  such 
persons  have  even  the  greater  need,  and  will  be  likely 
to  make  a  more  efficient  use,  of  the  power,  discipline  and 
scholarship  which  classical  study  will  give  them,  than 
of  the  more  or  less  of  German  and  French  which  they 
may  study  in  its  place.  The  manifold  relations  by  which 
a  knowledge  of  the  ancient  languages  and  of  ancient 
life  is  connected  with  the  history  which  they  read, 
the  literature  which  they  enjoy,  and  the  institutions 
under  which  they  live,  make  even  a  scanty  knowledge 
of  both  to  be  of  constant  use  and  application. 

The  student  of  Corneille  and  Goethe  is  also  mainly 
conversant  with  modern  ideas  and  modern  civilization. 
However  exquisite  the  diction  or  masterly  the  genius  of 
his  writer,  the  sentiments  and  passions  are  all  modern. 
But  the  student  of  Virgil  and  of  Homer  cannot  pain- 
fully translate  a  few  books  of  the  ^neid  or  the  Odys- 
sey, without  entering  into  the  thoughts,  sympathiz- 
ing with  the  feelings,  and  living  somewhat  of  the  life, 
of  human  beings  greatly  unlike  those  whom  he  has 
ever  known  or  imagined,  whose  thoughts  and  feelings 
do  not  repel  him  by  their  strangeness,  so  much  as  they 
attract  him  by  their  dignity  and  truth,  and  open  to  him 
a  new  world  of  sentiment  and  emotion.  The  people, 
into  whose  life  he  very  imperfectly  learns  to  enter, 
though  in  many  respects  so  unlike  the  men  of  present 
times,  are  yet  closely  connected  with  them  by  the  civil- 
ization, the  arts,  the  literature,  the  institutions,  the 
manners,  and  the  laws  which  the  ancients  perfected 
and  transmitted.  We  do  not  say  that  to  receive  such 
impressions  as  an  imperfect  scholarship  may  impart,  is 
worth  all  the  painstaking  which  the  study  of  Greek  and 


46  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

Latin  involves,  but  we  do  assert  that  if  these  impres- 
sions can  be  superadded  to  the  advantages  which 
come  from  the  discipHne  which  the  grammatical  study 
of  two  languages  requires,  then  this  is  a  sufficient 
reason  why  Greek  and  Latin  should  be  preferred  to 
French   and   German. 

We  contend,  moreover,  and  it  is  generally  conceded, 
that  in  disciplinary  influence  the  study  of  the  classics  is 
far  superior  to  that  of  the  modern  tongues,  not  except- 
ing the  German,  which  is  most  nearly  akin  to  the  Greek. 
The  regularity  and  fixedness  of  the  structure,  the  va- 
riety of  the  inflections,  the  distinctness  of  the  articula- 
tions, the  refinement  of  the  combinations,  the  objective 
utterances  to  the  mental  ear,  and  the  graphic  painting 
to  the  imagination,  when  coupled  with  the  wealth  of 
thought  and  feeling,  which  verb  and  adjective,  which 
noun  and  particle  enshrine  in  words  and  sentences,  all 
combine  to  give  the  classic  tongues  a  supremacy  over 
the  languages  of  modern  civilization,  which  all  candid 
and  competent  judges  have  confessed.  It  is  not  perti- 
nent to  claim,  that  one  complicated  and  artistic  lan- 
guage is  of  itself  equally  efficient  with  another  for  dis- 
cipline, especially  in  the  beginning  of  the  pupil's  studies. 
It  cannot  be  soberly  urged  that  one  dialect,  if  it  be 
African  or  Semitic,  is  as  good  as  another,  provided  it 
leads  the  mind  to  analyze  and  reflect.  The  discipline 
which  is  required  for  the  higher  education  is  not  a  simple 
gymnastic  to  the  intellect,  it  is  not  the  training  of  the 
curious  philologist,  or  the  sharp  logician,  but  it  is  a 
liberalizing  discipline  which  prepares  for  culture  and 
thought,  and  which  gradually  lifts  the  mind  from  the 
hard  and  dry  paradigms  of  the  pedagogue,  and  the  en- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  47 

forced  syntax  of  the  class-room,  to  the  comparative 
judgment  and  the  esthetic  culture  of  the  philosopher 
and  critic. 

We  find,  then,  the  following  reasons  why  what  are 
called  "  good  studies  "  in  French  and  German  should 
not  entitle  a  person  to  the  Bachelor's  degree  ;  and  why 
these  studies,  however  "  good  "  they  may  be  for  certain 
purposes,  cannot  be  as  good  for  the  commanding  ob- 
jects for  which  language  and  the  languages  are  studied 
in  a  course  of  education. 

They  are  not  so  good  to  teach  attention  to  the  struct- 
ure of  language  and  all  which  such  attention  involves, 
and  thus  to  train  the  student  to  the  intelligent  and  facile 
use  of  English,  or  to  the  criticism  of  the  same.  They 
are  not  so  good  to  prepare  the  mind  to  learn  other  lan- 
guages than  themselves  with  rapidity,  intelligence,  and 
retention.  They  are  not  so  good  to  prepare  for  the 
comparative  judgment  of  the  languages  which  one  may 
learn.  The  exercise  of  such  a  judgment,  whether  it  is 
employed  for  the  remoter  ends  of  the  philologist,  or  the 
more  general  aims  of  the  reflective  thinker,  is  one  of 
the  most  instructive  employments  of  the  educated  man. 
No  man  can  be  a  linguist,  in  the  best  and  most  intel- 
lectual sense  of  the  word,  who  is  not  a  classical  scholar, 
because  the  ancient  languages  are  the  best  material 
upon  which  to  study  language.  The  student,  who  has 
mastered  the  elements  of  Greek  and  Latin,  has  gone 
much  further  in  the  way  to  the  intelligent  knowledge  of 
language  generally,  than  one  who  has  gone  far  beyond 
the  elements  of  French  and  German.  This  is  explained 
by  the  fact  already  adverted  to,  that  the  structure  of 
the  classical  tongues  is  complicated  yet  clear,  ramified 


48  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

yet  regular,  artificial  yet  symmetrical,  objective  yet 
artistic  ;  and  that  in  all  these  features  these  languages 
are  preeminent  above  the  modern  tongues.  Some  phi- 
lologists do  not  confess  this,  we  know.  They  persuade 
themselves  that  an  Englishman  can  be  trained  as  suc- 
cessfully to  the  reflective  study  of  language,  by  the  use 
of  his  own  and  one  or  two  modern  languages,  as  by  the 
aid  of  the  classic  tongues.  But  we  think  such  persons, 
being  always  themselves  classicists,  mistake  the  sugges- 
tions of  their  own  insight  and  science  for  the  insight 
and  science  which  they  imagine  their  pupils  might  or  do 
attain.  In  short,  they  imagine  their  pupils  see  with  an 
eye  and  reflect  with  a  mind  that  have  been  disciplined 
and  enriched  by  classical  study. 

Again,  such  studies  cannot  be  so  good  for  the  disci- 
pline of  the  intellect.  The  study  of  languages  so  charac- 
terized must  be  a  better  training  for  the  intellect  than 
the  study  of  the  languages  which  task  the  intellect  less, 
from  the  greater  simplicity  of  their  structure  and  their 
greater  similarity  to  the  mother  tongue.  We  of  course 
assume  that  the  two  kinds  of  languages  are  taught 
equally  well,  and  are  pursued  with  equal  zeal  and 
spirit.     This,  we  think,  is  possible. 

Studies  in  the  modern  languages  are  not  so  good  as 
studies  in  the  ancient,  for  the  knowledge  of  man,  which 
they  directly  and  indirectly  impart.  The  man  of  the 
ancient  world  is  a  different  being  from  the  man  of 
modern  life.  Stately,  artificial,  decided,  clear  in  his 
opinions,  positive  and  outspoken  in  his  aims,  objective 
in  his  life,  positive  and  sharp  in  his  diction,  impet- 
uous in  his  impulses,  grand  in  his  connection  with  the 
state,  heroic  in  his  virtues  and  almost  in  his  vices,  he 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  49 

Stands  forth  in  striking  contrast  with  the  man  of  mod- 
ern times — the  idolatrous  Pagan  against  the  spiritual 
Christian,  the  self-cultured  against  the  self-sacrificing, 
the  idolater  of  country  and  the  state  against  the  wor- 
shiper of  the  Father  and  Redeemer  of  man.  He  is 
always  intellectual,  impressive,  and  intelligible,  because 
he  is  the  perfection  of  the  natural  and  earthly  in  its 
purest  and  noblest  manifestations.  The  man  of  mod- 
ern life  is  weakened  and  divided,  it  may  be,  by  the 
strife  of  the  natural  with  the  spiritual,  of  passion  with 
duty,  of  love  with  selfishness.  And  yet  the  classic 
humanity  is  not  so  strange  that  it  repels  or  overawes  us. 
It  moves  our  common  sympathies,  while  it  enlarges  our 
conceptions  of  the  forms  which  humanity  may  assume. 
All  that  is  good  in  it  is  the  more  impressive  from  its 
very  exaggerated  and  one-sided  character.  It  success- 
fully conveys  what  it  has  learned  or  felt  by  means  of 
the  clear,  beautiful,  and  positive  diction  which  it  always 
employs.  It  corrects  our  special  defects  of  thought,  of 
sentiment,  and  of  action,  by  the  clear  rationalism,  the 
simple  emotion,  the  manly  behavior  which  it  always  sets 
forth.  It  even  preserves  us  against  its  own  peculiar 
errors  by  the  very  distinctness  with  which  it  avows 
them,  and  the  consistent  energy  with  which  it  acts 
them  out.  The  student  of  modern  literature  is  always 
conversant  with  men  who  think,  feel,  and  act  like  him- 
self. The  student  of  ancient  literature  is  confronted 
with  a  human  life,  which  in  some  most  important  par- 
ticulars was  unlike  what  he  has  experienced  or  even 
conjectured  ;  and  yet  it  is  so  positive,  energetic,  and 
consistent  as  to  leave  a  strong  and  distinct  impression 
upon  the  imagination. 

3 


50  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

The  modern  languages  are  not  so  good  as  the  ancient 
to  prepare  for  the  intelligent  study  of  modern  histor)^ 
Modern  history  and  modern  literature  have  their  roots 
in  ancient  institutions  and  in  ancient  Hfe.  Modern 
poetry,  philosophy,  and  art,  were,  at  the  first,  inspired 
by  the  poetry,  philosophy,  and  art  of  Greece.  Modern 
polity  and  law  were  derived  from  Rome.  Modern  re- 
ligion came  from  Judea,  through  Grecian  and  Roman 
society.  To  understand  the  beginning  and  trace  the 
progress  of  the  new  developments  which  these  prime 
elements  of  modern  history  have  undergone,  we  must 
go  back  to  their  originals,  and  understand  the  society 
and  life  in  which  they  were  first  rooted  and  germinated. 
We  cannot  successfully  penetrate  into  the  spirit  of  an- 
cient life  without  mastering  the  languages  and  appre- 
ciating the  literature  in  which  the  ancients  have  en- 
shrined and  perpetuated  this  life.  Our  modern  educa- 
tional reformers  make  much  of  the  study  of  history, 
and  of  the  philosophy  -of  history.  But  what  can  the 
teacher  of  history  accomplish  with  classes  who  are 
practically  incapable  of  appreciating  the  spirit  and  life 
of  antiquity  ?  How  can  those  judge  of  his  assertions 
or  follow  his  analyses,  to  whom  the  most  important 
elements  with  which  he  deals  are  substantially  un- 
known, and  must  remain  forever  unappreciated  ? 

The  last  reason  which  we  give  why  studies  in  the 
modern  are  not  so  good  as  studies  in  the  ancient  lan- 
guages is,  that  they  do  not  so  efficiently  further  the  in- 
tellectual and  aesthetic  culture  of  the  student.  The 
evidence  for  this  has  been  furnished  in  the  considera- 
tions already  adduced.  If  modern  history  is  rooted  in 
the  ancient,  much  more  obviously  are  modern  thought 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC  5 1 

and  modern  culture  rooted  in  ancient  thought  and  an- 
cient culture.  Modern  speculation  was  born  of  ancient 
speculation,  and  still  recognizes  its  parentage,  as  it 
agrees  with  or  dissents  from  the  doctrines  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  The  modern  materialists  scarcely  do  more 
than  illustrate  and  enforce  from  modern  physics  the  an- 
cient metaphysics  of  the  Atomists  and  Epicureans.  The 
modern  spiritualists  give  greater  definiteness  and  au- 
thority to  the  mythical  constructions  of  Plato  and  the 
masterly  analyses  of  Aristotle.  The  images  of  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  are  as  fresh  and  as  quickening 
as  ever,  and  their  rhythm  is  as  musical  and  inspiring  as 
they  have  been  in  all  the  generations  since  the  birth  of 
modern  poetry.  They  have  not  been  superseded  by  the 
subjective  tendencies  of  the  modern  muse.  The  Greek 
Tragedies  are  still  pregnant  with  mystery  to  the  most 
subjective  and  questioning  of  the  moderns  who  brood 
over  the  seeming  perplexities  of  fate  and  Providence. 
Allusions  to  classical  images,  scenes,  events,  and  per- 
sonages, are  woven  into  the  tissue  of  all  modern  writ- 
ing. Classical  art,  with  its  outlines  as  sharply  cut  as 
the  faces  of  a  crystal,  and  yet  as  graceful  as  the  undu- 
lations of  the  moving  waters,  has  not  ceased  to  be  the 
model  of  beauty  and  grace  to  modern  art,  because  the 
products  of  the  last  have  been  animated  by  the  living 
spirit  of  Christian  love,  or  warmed  and  elevated  by  the 
spiritual  graces  of  Christian  faith  and  hope. 

The  student  who  makes  "  good  studies  "  in  modern 
thought  and  literature,  cannot  fail,  indeed,  of  a  quicken- 
ing influence  and  guidance,  but  the  student  who  has 
made  good  studies  in  ancient  thought,  has  made  him- 
self ready  to  occupy  his  life  with  a  far  more  intelligent 


52  THE    AMERICAN"    COLLEGES 

and  refined  appreciation  of  modern  thought  and  culture. 
As  in  the  order  of  the  culture  of  the  race,  the  severer 
discipline  of  ancient  institutions  first  prepared  the  way 
for  the  more  genial  influences  of  Christian  and  modern 
thought  and  feeling,  so  in  the  training  of  the  individual 
on  the  most  generous  scale,  the  pedagogical  period  is 
most  profitably  spent  in  the  ancient  schools,  before  the 
pupil  enters  upon  the  second  stage  of  thought  and 
conception  in  which  he  is  to  live  and  act,  which,  how- 
ever, is  none  the  less  truly  educating,  because  it  has 
become  the  wider  school  of  life. 

The  modern  educators,  who  claim  to  themselves  the 
merit  and  name  of  being  especially  broad  and  enlight- 
ened, take,  in  fact,  the  narrowest  and  most  limited  views 
of  education  and  even  of  life  itself.  They  forget  that 
as  soon  as  the  student  steps  forth  into  life,  modern 
thinking,  modern  literature,  and  modern  culture  will 
take  him  almost  exclusively  into  their  possession,  and 
will  assert  supreme  control  over  his  education.  Under 
the  fair  pretence  of  preparing  him  for  the  fields  of 
thought  and  action  on  which  he  is  to  enter,  they  confine 
him  from  the  first  to  the  same  round  in  which  he  is  to 
walk  all  his  life  long,  forgetting  that  the  most  efficient 
preparation  for  a  sphere  of  action  is  not  always  made 
by  remaining  within  that  sphere,  but  that  to  be  pre- 
pared most  efficiently  for  the  intellectual  and  sesthetical 
activity  in  which  we  are  to  be  employed,  we  must  be 
conversant  with  their  germinant  forces  and  their  con- 
trolling principles. 

Against  these  views  it  will  be  urged,  that  though  they 
are  plausible  in  the  ideal,  they  are  impracticable  in  the 
real — that  it  is  impossible  to  bring  all  the  members  of  a 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


S3 


colle^je  claGS  to  study  the  classics  with  sufficient  inter- 
est and  zeal  to  make  them  eminently  profitable  ;  that 
while  a  third  of  the  earnest  men  may  study  them  with 
zeal,  the  remaining  two-thirds  will  study  them  with  re- 
luctance. Or,  as  President  White  says,  "  When  I  was  a 
student  in  one  of  the  largest  New  England  colleges, 
there  were  over  a  hundred  in  my  class.  Of  these, 
twenty  or  thirty  loved  classical  studies,  and  could  have 
made  them  a  noble  means  of  culture  ;  but  these  were 
held  back  by,  perhaps,  seventy,  who  dreamed,  or 
lounged,  or  'ponied,'  or  '  smouged '  through — sadly  to 
the  detriment  of  their  minds  and  morals.  Consequently 
the  classical  professors — as  good  as  ever  blessed  any 
college — were  obliged  to  give  their  main  labor  to  stir- 
ring up  the  dullards,  to  whipping  in  the  laggards — in 
short,  not  to  the  thirty  who  loved  their  particular 
studies,  but  to  the  seventy  who  loathed-  them."  The 
Cornell  University  will  not  have  things  so  ordered ;  it 
will  "  indulge  in  no  tirades  against  the  classics."  "  It 
will  have  the  best  classical  professors  it  can  secure — it 
will  equip  their  departments  thoroughly,  it  will  not 
thwart  them  by  forcing  into  their  lecture  rooms  a  mass 
of  students  who,  while  reciting  Greek,  are  thinking  of 
German,"  etc.,  etc.  That  is.  President  White  would 
have  us  to  infer  that,  in  his  opinion  —  and  we  sup- 
pose there  are  many  who  agree  with  him — "the  dul- 
lards" and  "  the  laggards,"  the  men  who  "  ponied  "  and 
"  smouged,"  would  have  committed  none  of  these  faults 
had  they  been  allowed  to  study  German  instead  of 
Greek,  and  that  the  majority  of  every  college  class 
would  study  the  languages  with  alacrity  and  zeal,  if 
only  they  were  allowed  to  study  German  or  French. 


54  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

We  do  not  believe  this  opinion  to  be  correct,  and 
we  think  it  effectually  disproved  by  the  indisputable 
fact  that  the  men  who  are  dull  and  who  lag  in  Greek 
and  Latin,  are  almost  invariably  "  dullards  "  and  "  lag- 
gards "  in  German  and  French,  in  these  very  same  col- 
lege classes  and  class-rooms.  The  few  exceptions  are 
explained  by  the  greater  maturity  of  mind  and  of  char- 
acter with  which  the  study  of  the  modern  languages  is 
begun,  and  preeminently  by  the  better  elementary  in- 
struction with  which  it  is  introduced  to  the  mind,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  advantage  which  has  been  gained  by  a 
previous,  though  imperfect  study  of  the  classics. 

Moreover,  what  was  true  of  the  class  of  President 
White  in  respect  to  the  classics  was  true  eminentiori 
sensu  in  respect  to  the  mathematics,  and  yet  we  do  not 
observe  that  in  the  scheme  of  the  Cornell  University  it 
is  proposed  to  dispense  with  a  thorough  study  of  the 
mathematics  in  the  several  courses,  which  are  different 
ways  to  the  same  degree.  Nor  is  the  principle  to  be 
admitted  that  those  who  are  dull  in  the  mathematics  are 
to  be  excused  from  studying  them  because  they  long  for 
the  classics,  or  long  for  history,  or  it  may  be,  long  for  the 
lecture  courses  to  the  exclusion  of  recitations.  We 
do  not  deny  that  the  evils  com.plained  of  by  Presi- 
dent White  in  fact  exist.  But  they  are  not  peculiar  to 
any  course  of  study.  We  do  not  despair  of  a  partial 
remedy  of  these  evils,  but  are  confident  that  the  remedy 
is  not  to  be  found  in  the  substitution  of  the  modern  for 
the  ancient  languages. 

It  should  always  be  remembered  that  the  question 
with  which  we  are  concerned  relates  to  the  best  theoret- 
ical selection  of  studies,  and  cannot  always  be  decided  by 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  55 

the  practical  results  in  particular  cases.  What  is  best 
in  theory  will  be  best  in  practice,  only  when  it  is  thor- 
oug-hly  and  wisely  administered,  provided  the  circum- 
stances are  equally  favorable.  Among  these  circum- 
stances are  to  ba  enumerated  —  adequate  preparation 
by  previous  study  and  training,  judicious  methods  of 
teaching  and  discipline,  sufficient  time  to  bring  the  pre- 
scribed course  to  its  completion,  and  a  thorough  faith 
in,  and  enthusiasm  for,  the  value  of  a  study  in  pupils  and 
teachers.  In  some  of  these  respects  there  is  room  for 
great  improvement,  and  this  improvement,  as  we  shall 
show,  is  to  be  desired  and  hoped  for  in  the  American 
colleges.  At  present  we  are  concerned  with  the  theory 
of  the  selection  and  distribution  of  the  studies. 

It  may  be  contended  again,  that  if  the  modern  cannot 
altogether  take  the  place  of  the  ancient  languages  they 
may  share  an  equal  portion  of  time  and  of  honor  with 
them.  It  being  conceded  that  a  knowledge  of  two  or 
three  modern  languages  is  indispensable  to  every  scholar 
who  is  truly  educated,  it  is  urged  that  the  college  ought 
to  provide  instruction  in  these  languages  as  a  part  of  its 
curriculum.  In  accordance  with  this  view  the  modern 
languages  have  been  provided  for,  more  or  less  definitely 
and  completely,  in  many  of  the  colleges,  and  instruction 
in  them  is  given  either  in  the  regular  or  the  optional 
courses.  The  advantages  are  obvious.  The  student 
passes  from  a  dead  to  a  living  language,  as  from  a  Pom- 
peiian  to  a  modern  dwelling.  The  first  is  artistic  and 
ornate,  but  its  associations  are  with  the  past ;  the  second 
is  fresh  and  fragrant  with  modern  elegancies  and  com- 
forts. The  sense  of  a  certain  or  possible  utility  in  the 
language  learned  awakens  a  peculiar  interest,  especially 


56  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

if  the  student  has  advanced  several  stages  from  school 
life  and  school-boy  associations,  and  if  the  interests  and 
responsibilities  of  manhood  have  begun  to  awaken  and 
sober  him.  The  mingling  of  the  ancient  and  modern 
in  grammatical  analysis  and  in  etymological  research 
and  literary  criticism,  is  in  every  respect  happy  in  its 
influence. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  to  be  feared  that  the  time  for 
classical  study  will  in  this  way  be  seriously  diminished, 
that  the  interest  in,  and  estimate  of,  classical  culture 
will  be  so  far  weakened,  that  the  high  academical  tone 
will  be  injuriously  lowered,  and  the  most  important  ends 
of  academical  discipline  will  be  in  a  measure  thwarted. 
A  still  more  serious  evil  is  incident  to  the  elementary 
character  of  most  of  these  studies  as  at  present  pur- 
sued. The  college  class-room  is  not  a  place  in  which 
to  drill  to  French  pronunciation  or  German  exercises. 
So  long  as  the  instruction  in  German  and  French  is  el- 
ementary, the  tone  and  dignity  of  the  curriculum  must 
necessarily  be  lowered.  The  college  course  retains 
quite  enough  of  the  dressure  of  the  pedagogue  alread}^ 
and  the  subjection  of  the  school-boy,  and  the  enforced 
drill  of  the  French  and  German  professors  cannot  tend 
to  relieve  it  of  these  features.  No  relief  can  be  devised 
except  to  require  both  French  and  German — one  if  not 
both — as  preparatory  studies,  or  to  make  them  largely 
optional,  both  of  which  expedients  are  at  present  open 
to  serious  objections.  It  certainly  is  a  fair  subject  of 
inquiry,  whether  the  study  of  both  languages  might  not 
better  be  treated  as  an  extra  or  private  study,  under  the 
direction  of  a  competent  professor  provided  by  the  col- 
lege, and  whether  if  the  college  should  furnish  such  a 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  57 

teacher  and  encourage  attendance  upon  his  lessons,  it 
would  not  contribute  to  a  more  efficient  training  in  both 
ancient  and  modern  languages. 

If  the  classical  languages  cannot  with  propriety  be 
replaced  by  those  of  Modern  Europe,  much  less  can 
the  study  of  the  English  language  with  any  success 
be  made  a  substitute  for  either  or  both  of  them.  Very 
much  is  said  now-a-days,  in  a  loose  and  general  way, 
about  the  study  of  the  English  language  and  literature 
in  our  colleges.  The  critical  study  of  English  litera- 
ture cannot  be  overestimated,  so  far  as  the  awakening 
and  directing  of  a  taste  for  the  best  English  authors 
are  concerned.  To  this  should  be  added  an  ample  and 
critical  study  of  the  history  of  this  literature.  There 
is  no  single  study  for  which  the  great  body  of  the  stu- 
dents have  so  decided  a  taste  as  for  this  ;  none  in  which 
they  are  capable  of  being  aroused  to  so  generous  an 
enthusiasm.  It  is  in  efforts  at  original  composition 
and  debate  that  the  consciousness  of  individual  power 
is  usually  first,  awakened,  and  it  is  by  the  critical  study 
of  the  great  masters  of  thought  and  feeling  in  the  Eng- 
lish language  that  the  spirit  of  independent  activity 
and  production  can  be  most  efficiently  directed  and 
confirmed.  It  is  not  easy  to  arrange  for  efficient  and 
successful  instruction  in  this  department.  The  criti- 
cism of  English  composition,  the  training  to  effective 
debate  and  oratory,  and  the  awakening  to  a  genial  and 
intellectual  taste  for  imaginative  literature  are  all  inclu- 
ded within  its  sphere.  There  can  be  no  question  that 
a  greater  attention  should  be  given  to  all  these  objects, 
and  that  the  force  of  instructors  in  this  department 
ought  to  be  greatly  increased.     It  were  greatly  to  be 


58  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

desired  that  to  these  studies  should  be  united  a  thor- 
ough grammatical  and  philological  knowledge  of  the 
language  itself,  and  of  its  leading  dialects  through  the 
original  Anglo-Saxon  and  its  various  forms  of  develop- 
ment. But  this,  which  alone  is  worthy  to  be  compared 
with  any  study  of  the  classics  for  discipline,  is  a  branch 
of  the  higher  philology,  and  cannot  come  within  the 
college  course,  because  it  presupposes  a  somewhat  crit- 
ical knowledge  of  the  classical  and  some  of  the  modern 
languages.  It  cannot,  therefore,  be  urged  by  any  per- 
son whose  opinions  are  worth  regarding,  as  a  possible 
equivalent  or  substitute  for  the  study  of  either.  The 
utmost  that  can  be  hojDcd  or  desired  in  this  department 
is  the  mastery  of  a  thoroughly  scientific  English  gram- 
mar, if  such  an  one  were  to  be  had  in  the  English  lan- 
guage. But  to  suppose  it  possible  to  subject  one's 
mother  tongue  to  the  same  reflective  analysis  which  the 
mastery  of  a  language  not  vernacular  involves,  is  to  over- 
look the  most  important' psychological  fact,  that  a  lan- 
guage which  is  familiar  and  early  acquired  cannot  be 
analyzed  before  the  mind  has  reached  its  highest  ma- 
turity, nor  unless  it  has  been  especially  aided  by  the 
study  of  at  least  one  foreign  language.  This  is  one  of 
the  truths  which  experience  may  be  supposed  to  have 
settled. 

The  testimony  of  the  late  Dr.  Arnold  upon  this  topic 
is  of  greater  value,  because  he  was  so  earnest  in  his 
efforts  to  introduce  the  modern  languages  into  the  cur- 
riculum at  Rugby,  and  because  his  method  of  teaching 
the  classics  was  so  eminently  practical  and  liberal. 
"  The  study  of  language  seems  to  me  as  if  it  was  given 
for  the  very  purpose  of  forming  the   human   mind   in 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  59 

youth ;  and  the  Greek  and  Latin  languages,  in  them- 
selves so  perfect  and  at  the  same  time  freed  from  the 
insuperable  difficulty  which  must  attend  any  attempt  to 
teach  boys  philology  through  the  medium  of  their  own 
spoken  language,  seem  the  very  instruments  by  which 
this  is  to  be  effected." 

Prof.  Goldwin  Smith,  formerly  of  Oxford,  England, 
and  now  of  Cornell  University,  writes  as  follows  in  his 
tract  on  The  Reorganization  of  the  University  of  Ox- 
ford: — "  Though  the  classics  are  no  longer  what  they 
were  in  the  sixteenth  century,  they  are  still,  perhaps, 
the  best  Manual  of  Humanity,  and  they  are  capable 
of  being  practically  enlarged  in  their  scope  and  liber- 
alized to  an  almost  indefinite  extent  in  the  way  of  com- 
mentary and  illustration.  I  must  own  that  my  experi- 
ence of  historical  education  leaves  me  finally  under  the 
impression  that  ancient  history,  besides  the  still  une- 
qualed  excellence  of  the  writers  is  the  best  instrument  for 
cultivating  the  historical  sense.  =*=  *  *  Modern  lan- 
guages which  some  are  proposing  to  make  almost  the  sta- 
ple of  education,  are  indispensable  accomplishments,  but 
they  do  not  form  a  high  mental  training  ;  they  are  often 
possessed  in  perfection  by  persons  of  very  low  intellect- 
ual powers.  As  languages  and  instruments  of  linguistic 
training  the  best  of  them  are  far  inferior  to  the  Greek 
and  Latin,  the  merit  of  which,  indeed,  as  organs  of 
thought,  is  so  preeminent  that  it  is  difficult  to  believe 
that  their  destinies  are  yet  exhausted.  Nor  need  men 
be  brought  to  a  university  to  learn  modern  languages  ; 
on  the  contrary,  they  are  best  learned  abroad." 

We  approach  what  in  the  minds  of  many  is  a  much 
graver  question,  and  that  is  whether  the  study  of  the 


6o  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

physical  sciences  cannot  furnish  as  effective,  and  per- 
haps a  more  desirable,  mental  discipline  than  the  study 
of  language  at  all,  and  whether,  therefore,  they  cannot 
take  its  place  as  a  branch  of  college  or  university  study. 
It  is  contended  by  many  that  it  can  and  ought.  Mr. 
Herbert  Spencer — Educatioji :  Intellectual^  Aloral  and 
Physical — urges  very  earnestly  and  in  great  detail,  that 
all  the  processes  which  the  study  of  the  languages  in- 
volves are  brought  into  requisition  in  the  study  of  na- 
ture— that  discrimination,  combination,  and  judgment 
are  all  tasked  as  variously  and  as  severely  in  the  gener- 
alizations and  judgments  of  physics  as  in  those  of 
grammar  and  hermeneutics.  His  argument  is  more  in- 
genious and  plausible  than  convincing.  The  author  of 
a  very  interesting  and  able  Article  on  "  Science  in 
Schools,"  in  a  recent  number  of  the  Londo7i  Quarterly 
Review — October,  1867 — argues  very  ably  and  ingen- 
iously in  favor  of  introducing  the  physical  sciences  into 
the  school  and  university  curriculum.  He  contends 
with  Spencer  that,  if  rightly  taught  and  allowed  as 
large  a  place  in  the  curriculum  as  the  classics,  they 
cannot  fail  to  discipline  the  mind  as  effectively  as  these, 
for  the  uses  of  society  and  of  life.  At  the  same  time 
he  has  the  good  sense  to  see  and  the  boldness  to  say 
that  unless  they  can  be  taught  in  this  thorough  method, 
they  might,  for  all  educational  purposes,  as  well  not  be 
taught  at  all.  He  reasons  with  masterly  and  convincing 
power  against  the  practice  of  teaching  the  elements  of 
the  sciences  by  compends  or  brief  courses  of  lectures 
as  tending  only  to  superficialness  and  conceit. 

Our  own  opinion  may  be   expressed  in  the   remark 
that  Natural  History  should  be  taught  to  children  and 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  6 1 

youth  in  the  preparatory  school,  but  Natural  Science, 
with  the  exception  of  mathematical  and  mechanical 
physics,  should  be  deferred  till  the  very  latest  period  of 
the  college  course,  and  cannot  be  taught  even  then  with 
any  success,  except  so  far  as  its  fundamental  principles, 
and  so  to  speak,  its  logical  and  scientific  relations,  are 
concerned.  The  mastery  of  its  details  and  even  a  fa- 
miliarity with  the  application  of  its  principles  to  partic- 
ulars must,  of  necessity,  be  referred  to  the  Special 
Schools  of  Technology  or  Applied  Science  ;  that  is,  it 
must  be  made  a  part  of  special  as  contrasted  with  gen- 
eral or  liberal  training.  For  example.  Botany  and 
Mineralogy  wdth  the  elements  of  Geology,  especially 
Botany,  are  branches  which  can  be  acquired  in  early 
life, — which  is  the  observing  period, — provided  an  excit- 
ing interest  can  be  aroused  in  their  objects.  We  can- 
not estimate  too  highly  the  habits  which  are  induced  by 
these  studies,  or  the  tastes  which  they  awaken  and  re- 
fine. The  nice  eye  for  analysis,  the  attentive  eye  for 
research,  the  enterprise  and  self-reliance  required  for 
open-air  excursions,  the  elevating  influences  that  come 
from  a  contact  with  the  purity  and  beauty  of  nature, 
and  the  habits  of  ready  tact  and  rapid  induction  which 
such  studies  and  researches  involve,  are  all  invaluable 
features  of  the  character,  and  leave  priceless  treasures 
for  life.  No  one  can  appreciate  more  highly  than  we 
the  tastes  and  aptitudes  of  the  enthusiastic  naturalist, 
whether  seen  in  their  blossom  in  the  youthful  votary,  or 
in  their  ripeness  in  the  matured  philosopher.  We  would 
therefore  insist  that  these  sciences  should  be  studied 
thoroughly  in  the  preparatory  education,  so  far  as  they 
are  mainjy  sciences  of  observation  and  of  fact.     Besides 


62  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

the  advantages  of  which  we  have  spoken,  they  tend  to 
obviate  and  correct  certain  one-sided  tendencies  of  the 
mere  student  of  books  and  of  words.  They  rub  off 
his  pedantry  and  take  down  his  conceit.  They  relieve 
the  tedium  and  monotony  of  the  grammar  and  the  dic- 
tionary. We  might  connect  with  Botany  the  elements 
of  Vegetable  Physiology,  so  far  at  least  as  the  processes 
of  growth  and  culture  are  concerned.  There  is  no  ob- 
jection to  introduce  at  this  stage  the  elements  of  exper- 
imental Chemistry  and  perhaps  of  animal  Physiology,  to 
awaken  curiosity  and  stimulate  wonder  and  reverence. 
But  further  than  this  we  would  not  go,  because  the  phil- 
osophical or  generalizing  power  is  not  sufficiently  de- 
veloped to  grasp  or  appreciate  the  truths  or  relations 
of  natural  science  properly  so  called.  Science  of  any 
kind  cannot  be  scientifically  taught  unless  it  can  be 
scientifically  received  ;  and  in  order  to  be  scientifically 
received  the  recipient  must  have  been  trained  to  dis- 
criminate and  to  generalize,  to  construct  and  to  judge. 
The  devotee  and  expert  in  chemistry,  geology,  and 
physiology,  is  so  entranced  with  the  wonders  of  his  fa- 
vorite pursuit,  and  so  interested  in  the  processes  re- 
quired for  successful  research  and  experiment,  as  well 
as  in  the  products  which  these  researches  and  experi- 
ments evolve,  that  he  cannot  conceive  it  possible  that 
any  mind  at  any  stage  of  culture  should  fail  to  be  ex- 
cited by  his  own  enthusiasm  and  be  stimulated  to  his 
favorite  labors.  He  says  to  himself  and  to  the  public  : 
"  Only  give  me  the  same  opportunitities  which  the 
teacher  of  words  has  so  long  asserted  to  himself,  and 
the  training  which  I  will  effect  will  be  as  much  more 
complete  than  any  which  the  old  systems  have  accom- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  63 

plished,  as  the  products  are  more  useful  and  instructive. 
Only  give  me  a  college  in  which  Chemistry  and  Physi- 
ology, Mechanics  and  Geography,  Mineralogy  and  Ge- 
ology shall  take  the  place  of  the  Classics,  and  I  will 
produce  enthusiastic  students  and  splendid  philoso- 
phers." He  tries  the  experiment,  but  the  difficulty  is 
still  encountered  to  awaken  enthusiasm  and  scientific 
power  in  undisciplined  or  half-disciplined  minds — to 
stretch  a  narrow  intellect  wide  enough  to  receive  a  large 
truth,  or  to  understand  and  appreciate  the  manifold 
reach  of  philosophical  relations. 

We  venture  to  say  that  in  every  instance  in  which  a 
scientific  education  has  been  substituted  for  one  that 
is  classical  or  liberal,  there  have  been  as  many  failures 
of  the  highest  conceivable  success  as  are  charged  upon 
the  colleges.  The  classes  have  contained  their  due 
proportion  of  dullards  and  laggards^  and  this  not  for 
the  reason  that  such  long  for  other  forms  of  intellect- 
ual activity,  but  because  they  self-indulgently  dislike  any 
activity  at  all,  or  are  naturally  slow  and  dull,  or  have 
been  forced — more  usually  have  forced  themselves — into 
studies  for  which  they  are  not  prepared  by  the  mastery 
of  their  elements.  Scientific  and  Technological  schools, 
we  are  confident,  do  not  show  a  better  average  of  dili- 
gence or  of  success,  than  do  the  classical  and  liberal, 
where  everything  else  is  equal.  It  will  even  be  found 
that  a  curriculum  consisting  exclusively  of  scientific 
and  useful  studies,  if  equally  elementar}',  equally  long, 
equally  thorough,  and  equally  remote  from  any  foreseen 
applications  in  life,  will  awaken  less  interest  and  zeal 
and  emulation,  than  a  curriculum  of  exclusively  clas- 
sical and  literary'  subjects,  and  this  for  the  two-fold  reason 


64  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

that  the  study  of  nature,  as  natural  history,  requires 
special  tastes,  which  are  as  limited  in  their  prevalence 
as  they  are  intense  in  their  energy — and  that  the  power 
to  grasp  the  sciences  of  nature  is  as  slow  and  late  in  its 
development,  as  it  is  comprehensive  and  splendid  in  its 
rare  jDerfection. 

The  introduction  of  Natural  Science  and  of  Modern 
History  into  the  curriculum  at  Oxford  has  not  sensibly 
increased  the  number  of  studious  or  "  honor  men,"  if 
we  may  trust  a  writer  in  Macmillan's  Magazine  for  De- 
cember, 1869,  who  gives  statistics  in  support  of  his  as- 
sertions. "  Speaking  roughly,"  he  says,  "  not  more 
than  one  man  in  three  goes  in  for  '  honors'  in  any 
*  school'  at  the  degree  examination  ;  and  it  is  remarka- 
ble that,  after  considerable  fluctuation,  the  proportion 
is  nearly  the  same  as  it  was  thirty  years  ago,  though  in 
1853  the  new,  and  as  it  was  thought,  attractive  subjects 
of  Natural  Science  and  Modern  History  were  added  to 
the  curriculum."     (Study  a?id  Opinion  at  Oxford.) 

We  contend,  moreover,  that  such  a  training,  if  it  were 
more  uniformly  successful  in  its  results,  would  not  as  a 
discipline  take  the  place  of  that  which  the  study  of  lan- 
guage imparts  and  involves,  for  the  reason  that  it 
neither  requires  so  subtle  a  use  of  the  intellect,  nor 
one  that  is  so  manifold  and  various.  The  Physical  sci- 
ences do  indeed  bring  us  in  contact  with  7iature^  and  in- 
vite us  to  discover  or  contemplate  her  laws.  But  Lit- 
erary studies  confront  us  with  man  as  exhibited  either 
in  the  refined  relations  of  thought  and  feeling  that  have 
been  inwrought  into  the  structure  of  language,  or  in 
the  expressions  of  thought  and  feeling  that  are  enshrined 
by  literature.     They  are  properly  and  preeminently  hu- 


AND   THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  65 

man  and  humanizing  studies,  inasmuch  as  the}^  contin- 
ually present  man  to  us  in  the  various  workings  of  his 
higher  nature.  Hence  they  prepare  us  for  the  more 
abstruse  and  formal  study  of  man,  for  the  science  of  the 
soul  in  all  its  forms  and  applications,  as  psychology, 
ethics,  politics,  law,  and  sociology.  Man  and  nature 
are  alike  the  works  of  God.  The  science  of  each  nat- 
urally leads  us  to  God,  but  surely  neither  the  mechanism 
of  the  masses  of  the  universe,  nor  the  chemistr}^  of  its 
molecules,  nor  the  history  of  the  development  of  its 
forces,  are  better  fitted  to  bring  us  any  nearer  to  Him 
than  the  constitution  and  workings  of  the  soul,  with  its 
manifestations  in  literature,  and  its  developments  in  hu- 
man history. 

From  whatever  point  of  view  we  regard  the  stud}"  of 
the  sciences,  especially  those  which  have  been  so  greatly 
enlarged  in  the  present  century— as  Chemistry,  Miner- 
alogy, Geology,  and  Physical  Geography,  Zo51ogy,  Bot- 
any, with  Practical  Engineering  and  Practical  Astrono- 
my— the  only  course  which  is  practicable  is  to  teach 
their  fundamental  principles  in  the  college,  and  their 
details  and  applications  in  a  special  school  of  Science 
or  of  Technolog^^  To  attempt  any  other  course  is 
alike  disastrous  to  the  interests  of  Education  and  of 
Science.  The  man  who  would  be  accomplished  in  any 
of  these  sciences,  must,  in  a  certain  sense,  become  a 
devotee,  sometimes  almost  a  martyr,  to  its  cause.  He 
must  accumulate  vast  stores  of  facts  and  details,  must 
reduce  them  to  classified  order,  must  retain  them  within 
his  grasp,  must  pursue  inquiries  and  researches  of  his 
own,  and  must  be  alert  to  receive  and  record  the  rejDorts 
of  those  of  others.     Hence,  other  things  being  equal,  he 


56  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

has   the   greater   need  of  a  previous  general  discipline 
and  culture.     If  he  is  to  be  a  philosopher,  in  distinc- 
tion from  a  scientific  artisan,  he  will  gain  more  than  al- 
most any  other  class  of  professional   men  from  a  pre- 
liminary   and    classical    course    such    as    the    college 
furnishes,  for  the  reason  that  his   subsequent  pursuits 
tend  to  withdraw  him  more  entirely  from  the   field   of 
general   culture.     The  Scientific    School   does   well  to 
supply  these   defects,  so  far  as   it  may,  by   combining 
with  its  more  thorough  training  in  the  special  sciences, 
instruction  and  discipline  in  the   languages   and   litera- 
ture, in  history  and  philosophy,  but  it   cannot  give   the 
breadth  and  energy  which  the  larger  and  more  liberal 
discipline  of  the   college   is  fitted   to   impart.     But  the 
Scientific  School  itself  presents  the   best  evidence  of 
the  truth  that  a  course  of  a  liberal  training  is  preemi- 
nently fitted  to  qualify  the  student  to  make  the   most 
rapid  and  successful  progress  in  pure  and  applied  science. 
The  well-trained  graduate^  of  a  college  with  strong  sci- 
entific tastes,  will  often  in  a   few  months   overtake  and 
surpass  his  companion  who  has  had  an  apiDrenticeship 
of  years  in  exclusively  scientific  activities.     His  pow- 
er of  analysis  and  method,  his  capacity  for  easy  com- 
prehension,   for    wide    generalization,   and    for    rapid 
achievement,  as  well   as   his  greater  subtlety  in  inter- 
preting nature,  will  all  be    conspicuous.     We   are  well 
aware  that  some  of  the  most  distinguished  philosophers 
in  the  special  sense  of  the  term,  in  the  new  and  the  old 
world,  have  had  no  advantages   of  classical  or  academ- 
ical training.     We  remember  that   Davy  and   Faraday, 
began   their  studies   in  the  laboratory  ;  but  these  most 
gifted  geniuses  would  have  shone  no  less  brightly  in  the 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  67 

domain  of  philosophy,  had  they  been  discipHned  in 
other  directions  earlier  in  life,  as  they  themselves  would 
have  been  the  foremost  to  acknowledge.  If,  then,  the 
college  teaches  the  grand  sciences  of  nature,  in  their 
principles  and  leading  truths,  in  their  elements  and  their 
logic — allowing  some  range  and  opportunity  for  those 
who  have  special  tastes  to  cultivate  and  discipline — and 
then  provides  special  schools  in  which  these  sciences 
may  be  thoroughly  mastered  in  a  scientific  and  tech- 
nical way,  it  does  all  that  it  ought.  To  attempt  to  bring 
the  two  curricula  into  close  relations,  or  to  force  them 
into  unnatural  and  incongruous  alliances,  is  to  injure 
both  sciences  and  discipline,  as  well  as  to  assume 
higher  functions  and  a  more  pretentious  name  than  the 
college  can  lawfully  claim  for  itself.  That  there  is  no 
magic — except  the  magic  of  pretension — in  the  name 
of  a  university,  without  a  preparation  for  its  appropri- 
ate instruction  on  the  part  of  professors  and  hearers, 
we  shall  endeavor  to  show  in  its  proper  place. 

The  only  branches  or  departments  of  study  which 
remain  for  us  to  consider,  are  the  Mathematics  and 
General  Physics.  These  two  are  so  closely  connected 
that  they  may  be  regarded  as  one.  We  have  already 
noticed  the  fact  that  the  advocates  of  the  so-called 
useful  studies  always  include  in  them  both  Mathemat- 
ics and  Physics,  and  that  the  real  or  technological 
schools  invariably  comprehend  in  their  curriculum  the 
pure  mathematics,  and  often  require  the  study  of  the 
most  refined  branches  of  the  same.  But  the  pure 
mathematics,  both  elementary  and  advanced,  are  the 
least  directly  practical  of  any  sciences.  It  is  only  be- 
cause of  their  necessity  as  the   foundation  of  the  ap- 


6S  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

plied  sciences  and  arts,  that  they  are  so  readily  admit- 
ted into  the  circle  of  practical  and  useful  knowledge. 
The  opponents  of  classical  and  humanistic  studies  are 
heard  occasionally  to  insist  upon  the  discijDlinary  influ- 
ence of  the  mathematics,  and  to  contrast  them  with 
the  languages  in  this  respect.  Whenever  they  do  this 
they  forsake  the  ground  on  which  they  usually  plant 
themselves,  that  no  studies  are  to  be  pursued  solely  or 
chiefly  for  their  disciplinary  value. 

We  observe,  again,  that  in  our  country  there  are  very 
few  persons  who  insist  on  the  entire  disuse  of  the 
classics  in  favor  of  the  mathematics.  The  only  repre- 
sentatives of  a  view  so  extreme  are  the  guardians  of  the 
Academy  at  West  Point.  But  even  they  do  not  hold 
the  opinion  that  the  curriculum  in  that  institution  is  a 
model  for  general  education,  but  only  that  it  is  the  best 
adapted  as  a  training  for  military  life.  Whether  they 
are  wise  in  this  opinion  is  a  question  open  to  discus- 
sion. We  have  no  occasion  to  discuss  this  question 
here.  The  other  alternative  opinion  is  held  only  in 
limited  circles.  The  University  of  Oxford  and  a  few 
of  the  great  schools  of  England  alone  give  excessive 
and  almost  exclusive  jDrominence  to  the  classics. 

It  deserves  to  be  noticed  that  in  the  colleges  of  this 
country  the  Mathematics  and  Physics  have  had  the  pre- 
ponderance over  the  classics,  and  that  of  late  they  have 
been  rather  gaining  than  losing  ground.  That  they 
ought  to  be  retained  and  cultivated  will  be  questioned 
by  none.  That  they  ought  to  be  exclusively  or  chiefly 
pursued,  is  believed  by  few.  The  precise  proportion 
which  they  should  claim  in  a  curriculum,  we  will  not 
here   discuss.     We   have  already  adverted  to  the  fact 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  69 

that  were  we  to  estimate  the  usefuhiess  of  a  branch  of 
study  by  the  number  of  persons  who  pursue  it  with  en- 
thusiasm and  eminent  success,  the  mathematics  would 
fall  far  behind  the  classics.  It  was  not  only  true  of  the 
college  class  of  which  President  White  was  a  member, 
but  it  is  true  of  all  college  classes,  that  those  who  dis- 
like the  mathematics  greatly  outnumber  those  who  dis- 
like the  classics  ;  yet  the  advocates  for  congenial  or 
utilitarian  studies,  do  not  usually  recommend  that  the 
mathematics  should  be  abandoned,  because  they  are 
abstruse  and  unpractical.  The  reasons  are  obvious  :  the 
mathematics  are  essential  that  the  students  may  master 
what  is  called  science,  and  must  be  studied  whether 
they  are  liked  or  disliked  ;  or  the  mathematics  must  be 
learned  in  order  that  the  mind  of  the  pupil  may  be 
disciplined  to  that  acuteness  and  self-control  which  the 
higher  scientific  investigations  and  processes  impera- 
tively require.  In  either  view,  the  principle  is  admitted 
by  those  who  profess  to  reject  it,  that  knowledge  and 
study  may  be  disciplinary  when  they  are  not  directly 
useful. 

Throughout  our  discussion,  thus  far,  we  have  assumed 
that  certain  studies  may  be  of  the  greatest  value  for 
discipline  which  possess  no  other  obvious  and  direct 
utility.  This  is  denied  or  overlooked  by  many  ;  or  at 
least  it  is  urged  that  if  a  study  is  also  useful,  this  does 
not  hinder  it  from  being  also  disciplinary.  It  is  also 
urged  that  the  range  of  studies  which  are  both  useful 
and  disciplinary  is  so  large  that  no  study  should  be  se- 
lected for  its  disciplinary  utility  alone.  We  have  seen 
that  this  rule  is  not  adhered  to  in  the  case  of  the  math- 
ematics, even  by  the  doughtiest  champions  of  utility. 


70  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

We  are  tempted  to  add  a  word  here  in  defense  of  the 
opinion  that  certain  studies  ought  to  be  pursued,  chiefly 
because  of  their  disciphnary  value.  Its  truth  will  be 
more  manifest  from  the  consideration  that  the  employ- 
ments and  sports  of  childhood  and  youth  are  chiefly 
disciplinary  and  gymnastic  in  their  influence  and  effect. 
The  acquisition  of  permanent  stores  of  knowledge  is 
not  the  best  result  of  the  restless  sportiveness  of  child- 
hood, and  the  unceasing  excitements  of  youth  ;  they 
are  the  sagacity,  the  self-reliance,  the  quickness  and 
self-control,  and  every  other  good  habit  which  is  gath- 
ered from  those  bright  and  busy  years.  The  school-life 
of  the  child  and  youth  is  not  so  valuable  for  the  knowl- 
edge which  it  imparts  as  for  the  power  and  skill  to 
which  it  trains.  What  the  boy  brings  away  in  his  mem- 
ory, whatever  be  the  subject  studied,  is  worth  some- 
thing ;  but  compared  with  the  many  years  of  study,  and 
the  multitude  of  lessons  repeated,  these  acquisitions  are 
but  meager.  What  he  gains  in  the  power  to  learn,  to 
judge,  and  to  apply  are  acquisitions  that  cannot  be  esti- 
mated too  highly.  The  man,  when  mature,  can  quickly 
master  the  lesson,  or  analyze  the  argument,  or  resolve 
the  problem  which  would  have  cost  him  many  a  weary 
hour  in  his  childhood,  and  he  imagines  that  some 
method  should  and  may  be  devised  by  which  the  forces 
of  childhood  should  be  more  economically  utilized.  The 
child,  he  reasons,  has  time  enough  to  learn  a  whole  en- 
cyclopaedia of  facts,  and  it  is  a  pity  and  a  shame  that  he 
does  not.  Only  put  him  wisely  to  school,  and  give  him 
the  right  description  of  facts,  and  he  will  bring  away  un- 
told treasures  for  his  manhood.  Perhaps  he  may,  but  if 
he  is  not  also  disciplined  to  the  power  to  master  and  hold 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  7 1 

these  facts,  of  what  avail  are  his  lessons  and  opportu- 
nities ?  By  the  same  method  of  reasoning  it  follows 
that  if  he  learns  these  facts  in  such  a  way  as  not  to  train 
his  powers  to  judge,  discriminate,  and  reason,  his  child- 
hood and  youth,  however  richly  freighted  with  facts  and 
information,  will  have  been  almost  wasted. 

We  contend  that  if  most  of  the  employments  and 
sports  of  childhood  and  youth  are  chiefly  valuable  so 
far  as  they  are  disciplinary  to  power  and  goodness,  the 
presumption  is,  that  in  the  studies  of  school  and  col- 
lege life,  the  same  principle  will  hold  good.  Unless  it 
can  be  decisively  proved  that  the  so-called  useful  studies 
are  as  efficient  in  their  disciplinary  capacity  and  effect, 
it  forms  no  objection  to  a  study  that  its  acquisitions 
cannot  be  used.  Its  acquisitions  of  the  noble  sort  cannot 
but  be  used.  They  may  not  be  recorded  in  the  memory 
indeed,  but  they  are  inwrought  and  ingrained  into  the 
very  structure  of  the  intellectual  and  active  powers,  and 
they  make  themselves  manifest,  not  merely  now  and 
then  when  a  fact  is  to  be  recalled  and  a  date  corrected, 
but  on  every  occasion  on  which  the  man  is  called  to 
think,  speak,  or  write  ;  to  feel,  resolve,  or  act ;  to  delib- 
erate, advise,  or  inspire. 

Holding  these  views,  we  contend  that  the  college 
training  is  preeminently  desirable  for  those  young  men 
\A\o  are  destined  for  an  active  and  hushiess  life,  and  that 
these  least  of  all  should  seek  for  what  is  called  a  more 
practical  course  of  study.  The  disciplinary  studies  of 
the  college  quicken  the  intellect  and  form  it  to  habits 
of  method,  of  analysis,  and  of  comprehension.  Ail  of 
these  habits  are  brought  into  constant  requisition,  when 
practical  take   the   place  of  speculative  questions,  and 


72  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

men  and  their  relations  occupy  the  chief  attention,  in- 
stead of  books  and  literature.  The  liberal  studies  of 
the  college  are  if  possible  most  necessary  to  those  who 
by  the  necessities  of  their  future  calling  are  to  be  de- 
barred to  a  great  extent  from  the  amenities  of  literature, 
and  the  delights  of  reading. 

It  is  urged  by  many  that  for  such,  a  briefer  course 
is  more  appropriate  than  that  of  the  college,  but  cer- 
tainly without  reason.  It  would  seem  that  for  a  life 
which  is  not  to  be  primarily  bookish  or  literary,  the 
period  of  exclusive  dealing  with  books  and  science 
required  in  the  college  is  not  an  hour  too  long.  Ex- 
perience also  confirms  this  impression  by  the  decisive 
testimony  gathered  from  a  multitude  of  witnesses,  that 
the  young  man  who  leaves  college  at  twenty-one  and 
enters  a  counting  or  sales-room,  will  at  twenty-three 
if  diligent  and  devoted,  have  outstripped  in  business 
capacity  the  companion  who  entered  the  same  position 
at  sixteen  and  has  remained  in  it  continuously,  while 
in  his  general  resources  of  intellect  and  culture  he  will 
be  greatly  his  superior. 

It  is  urged  more  confidently,  that  while  this  training 
should  be  liberal,  it  should  in  some  respects  be  more 
practical  than  that  which  is  permitted  by  the  college. 
Accordingly  the  school  of  science  or  of  technology  is 
recommended  as  preeminently  the  place  of  training  for 
those  who  are  to  become  men  of  business  or  gentlemen 
of  leisure.  If  their  career  is  to  be  in  any  sense  pro- 
fessional, as  of  the  engineer,  the  mining  director,  the 
chemist,  etc.,  and  the  time  is  limited,  the  school  of  sci- 
ence is  to  be  accepted,  but  for  a  business  life,  the  more 
generous  course  of  the  college,  including,  as  it  now  does, 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


73 


the  modern  as  well  as  the  ancient  languages,  is  greatly 
to  be  preferred  for  all  the  reasons  which  have  been  sug- 
gested, provided  the  person  will  take  the  time  and  has 
either  the  taste  or  the  capacity  for  literary  culture.  If 
he  must  cut  short  his  course  of  study,  notwithstanding 
the  especial  need  in  his  case  that  it  be  as  long  as  possi- 
ble, then  he  must  be  content  with  what  a  briefer  course 
will  give  him.  If  he  has  a  distaste  for  books  and  some 
aptitude  for  mechanics  or  chemistry,  then  he  may  resort 
to  the  school  of  science  and  a  less  rigorous  course  in 
the  languages  and  the  mathematics.  In  the  majority  of 
cases,  he  should  aspire  to  the  severer  and  more  lib- 
eral training  which  the  classical  curriculum  furnishes. 
The  world  of  practical  life  will  take  possession  of  him 
sufficiently  early.  It  will  absorb  his  energies,  and 
modify  his  tastes,  and  occupy  his  whole  being  all  too 
soon,  and  too  completely.  The  future  man  of  business 
or  gentleman,  of  all  other  men,  in  such  a  country  as 
ours,  most  needs  the  college  training,  and  the  country 
in  which  he  is  to  live  requires  that  he  should  have  it. 

Thus  far  our  attention  has  been  occupied  with  the 
studies  pursued  in  college.  We  have  endeavored  to 
show  that  the  course  or  curriculum  is,  in  its  general 
features,  wisely  arranged,  and  that  the  prominence 
given  to  the  classics  and  mathematics  should  never  be 
abandoned.  These  two  studies,  we  believe,  must,  and 
ever  will,  be  regarded  as  the  great  pillars  on  which  any 
education  which  deserves  to  be  called  liberal  must 
always  rest.  The  so-called  college  or  university  which 
does  not  require  or  presuppose  these  studies  may 
assume  the  name  of  a  college  or  university,  but  it  is 
true  to  the  meaning  and  spirit  of  neither. 

4 


74  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

But  while  we  defend  the  curriculum  of  studies  that  is 
enforced  in  tlie  American  Colleges,  we  do  not  contend 
that  the  administration  of  it  is  not  attended  by  certain 
incidental  evils  against  which  both  instructors  and 
pupils  need  to  be  defended  by  constant  alertness  and 
care.  There  are  also  many  improvements  and  reforms 
which  can  be  introduced  as  the  appliances  of  these  col- 
leges are  enlarged ;  and  as  the  corps  of  instruction 
makes  progress  in  numbers,  in  cultivation,  and  in  de- 
votion to  its  work.  We  hope  also  for  very  great  ad- 
vances from  the  improved  cultivation  of  the  community 
and  the  quickening  influences  of  a  higher  civilization. 

What  the  colleges  need  first  of  all,  is  a  more  uni- 
formly adequate  preparation  on  the  part  of  those  ad- 
mitted to  their  privileges.  Any  organized  institution 
of  learning  must  prescribe  some  conditions  of  ad- 
mission, whether  one  curriculum  of  studies  is  enforced 
upon  all,  whether  it  provides  for  many  parallel  or 
optional  courses,  or  whether  it  admits  students  for  a 
longer  or  a  shorter  period.  Just  so  far  as  it  professes 
to  admit  all  comers  at  all  stages  of  preparation,  and  to 
teach  them  any  or  everything  which  they  need  or  desire 
to  study,  just  in  that  measure  is  it  nearer  the  chaotic 
or  amorphic  condition  ;  or  rather  is  like  one  of  those 
reptiles  which  were  supposed  to  be  produced  from  the 
slime  of  the  Nile — the  foreparts  organized,  and  the  re- 
mainder, as  Richard  Baxter  says,  ^^ plahi  miidy 

It  being  granted  that  some  preparation  is  required  by 
nature  and  necessity,  and  ought  therefore  to  be  enforced 
by  law,  in  order  that  any  course  of  study  may  be  pur- 
sued by  even  a  few  persons  together,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  further  this  preparation  is  advanced,  and  the  more 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  75 

uniformly  it  is  reached,  the  higher  and  more  complete 
is  the  work  which  the  college  can  do.  If  the  ground- 
ing or  drill  work  in  the  classics  which  is  essential  to 
any  progress  or  pleasure  in  the  study  of  the  higher 
relations  of  the  ancient  languages  and  literature,  is  not 
attained  in  the  preparatory  school,  it  must  be  performed 
in  the  college.  If  the  elements  of  Arithmetic,  Algebra, 
and  Geometry  are  not  thoroughly  mastered  before  enter- 
ing college  they  must  in  some  way  be  taught  and  learned 
afterwards,  at  whatever  cost  or  disadvantage.  If  a  part 
of  the  students  are  well  taught,  and  a  large  part  are 
imperfectly  prepared,  the  college  course  must  be  ad- 
justed to  the  average  condition  of  the  class,  and  the 
disgust,  ennui,  and  negligence  of  some,  and  the  dis- 
couragement and  disheartening  of  the  others,  will  be 
certain  to  follow.  The  fact  is  notorious  that  the  pre- 
paratory instruction  in  this  country  is  not  uniformly 
good,  nor  is  it  likely  soon  to  become  so.  It  is  not  easy 
for  one  college  alone,  nor  for  many  combined,  to  bring 
it  up  to  any  desired  or  uniform  standard.  So  many  appli- 
cants for  admission  do,  in  fact,  in  a  good  measure  over- 
come and  outgrow  the  disabilities  which  are  incident 
to  this  imperfect  preparation,  that  it  is  impracticable  to 
arrest  many  in  their  course,  especially  if  through  pov- 
erty or  advanced  age  they  have  reason  for  pressing  into 
the  college.  The  door  which  is  open  widely  enough  to 
admit  such  persons,  and  with  no  very  serious  incon- 
venience to  them,  must  admit  others  who  cannot  or  will 
not  redeem  the  promises  which  they  make  or  the  hopes 
which  they  excite.  A  brief  or  even  a  protracted  exam- 
ination, conducted  under  the  most  favorable  circum- 
stances, is  not  always  a  fair  test  of  actual  knowledge, 


76  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

capacity,  or  promise.  Least  of  all  is  it  when  it  is  ap- 
plied to  strangers  under  the  special  embarrassments 
which  attend  their  entrance  into  college.  It  may  even 
be  unfair  and  unjust  in  proportion  to  its  minuteness 
and  fullness,  if  it  is  conducted  in  the  narrow  or  in- 
human spirit  of  a  school  pedant  or  martinet.  But  the 
explanation  of  how  it  happens  that  so  many  enter  col- 
lege without  being  prepared  for  its  studies  does  not  in 
the  least  reheve  or  remove  the  evil.  It  does,  however, 
remove  the  responsibility  from  the  college  itself  for 
doing  so  much  of  that  school  and  drill  work  which  it 
ought  not  to  be  obliged  to  do  at  all,  and  for  failing  to 
do  some  of  that  liberal  and  intellectual  work  which  is 
more  appropriate  to  a  higher  institution.  We  cannot 
separate  the  higher  from  the  lower  institutions  of  the 
country ;  nor,  again,  the  education  of  either  from  the 
education  imparted  by  its  general  culture  and  its  com- 
mon life.  The  evils  comjDlained  of  cannot  be  wholly, 
nor  can  they  be  immediately  remedied,  by  one  college 
nor  by  all  the  colleges  united.  Much  of  this  improve- 
ment depends  on  the  general  culture  of  the  community. 
So  far  as  the  respon'sibility  rests  upon  the  managers  of 
the  colleges,  they  ought  to  employ  and  combine  all 
their  efforts  not  so  much  for  an  ampler  as  for  a  better 
preparation  in  the  classics  and  the  mathematics. 

Nor  should  the  improvement  be  confined  to  these 
studies.  The  incapacity  of  many  students  to  turn  the 
college  curriculum  to  better  advantage,  results  from 
their  deficiency  in  general  culture  and  the  discipline 
and  refinement  which  such  a  culture  involves.  The 
power  of  a  college  to  impart  is  limited  by  the  capacity 
of  the  student  to  receive  and  appropriate  its  manifold 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  77 

educating  influences.  The  incapacity  of  the  student  to 
receive  may  arise  as  truly  from  his  ignorance  of  English 
Grammar  and  Geography,  of  History  and  Rhetoric,  and 
even  of  Natural  History,  as  from  his  weakness  in  Arith- 
metic or  the  Latin  Grammar.  Not  a  few  students  who 
are  entirely  competent  to  pass  the  prescribed  exam- 
ination with  credit, — of  the  vulgar  rich  as  well  as  the 
vulgar  poor, — are  so  illiterate  and  uninformed  in  their 
general  culture,  and  so  unrefined  in  their  tastes,  as  to 
be  almost  incapable  of  taking  that  higher  polish  which 
the  college  curriculum  and  the  college  life  are  fitted  to 
impart  to  a  receptive  and  refined  nature.  If  the  col- 
leges are  to  aim  to  become  more  positively  refining  and 
liberal  in  their  culture,  they  will  need  youths  v/hose 
general  as  well  as  special  training  has  been  liberal  and 
refined  both  at  school  and  at  home. 

No  object  seems  to  us  more  important  or  more  easily 
within  reach  than  to  elevate  and  improve  the  secondary 
or  preparatory  schools  in  these  respects,  as  well  as  in 
the  thoroughness  of  their  scholarship.  The  most  dis- 
tinguished and  the  best  endowed  of  these  seminaries 
have  confined  their  attention  and  efforts  too  exclusively 
to  the  aim  of  grounding  their  pupils  in  the  classics  and 
the  mathematics.  They  have  made  their  curriculum 
too  exclusively  a  drilling,  process.  Abundant  studies 
in  history  and  geography,  especially  of  the  ancient 
world,  ought  to  be  connected  with  the  drill  work  of  the 
grammar  and  the  blackboard.  The  analysis  of  Latin 
and  Greek  sentences  should  be  enlivened  and  made 
intelligible  by  the  analysis  of  English  sentences  and 
phrases  as  well.  The  stiflhess  and  drj-ness  of  the 
ancient  classics,  especially  when  painfully  and  slowly 


78  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

construed,  would  be  greatly  alleviated  by  the  concur- 
rent study  of  a  living  language.  The  work  of  Latin 
composition  might  be  brought  home  to  the  compre- 
hension and  made  easy  and  familiar  to  the  associations 
by  the  daily  practice  of  French  and  even  of  English 
composition  and  phrase-making.  The  neglect  of  all 
these  appliances  and  conditions  of  general  culture  in 
too  many  of  the  so-called  classical  schools  of  this 
country  is  inexcusable.  So  long  as  this  neglect  con- 
tinues, the  colleges  must  suffer  under  reproaches  which 
should  not  properly  rest  upon  them.  The  advocates 
and  laudators  of  our  public  school  system  as  being  so 
ample  and  efficient  for  general  culture,  ought  to  inquire 
how  it  happens  that  the  system  which  they  assert  per- 
forms so  important  a  service  for  the  whole  community, 
does  not  provide  the  college  Freshmen  with  a  more 
familiar  knowledge  of  the  so-called  English  branches 
and  the  English  language.  Surely  the  classical  schools 
and  the  classical  colleges  are  not  wholly  at  fault,  that 
the  attainments  of  so  many  who  have  made  the  circuit 
of  the  public  as  well  as  of  the  special  schools,  are  so 
pitiably  low  when  they  enter  college. 

But  the  call  and  the  opportunity  for  improvement,  and 
it  may  be  for  reform,  are  not  all  within  the  preparatory 
schools.  The  colleges  themselves,  we  believe,  may  do 
much  to  improve  their  methods  of  teaching  the  studies 
of  their  curriculum.  It  does  not  follow  because  the 
first  and  direct  service  of  this  course  is  disciplinary, 
that  it  ought  not  also  to  be  intellectual  and  elevating. 
On  the  other  hand,  we  contend  that,  as  in  the  general 
education  of  childhood,  the  disciplinary  and  enforced 
should  gradually  pass  over  into  the  intellectual  and  the 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


79 


voluntary ;  so  in  the  special  education  of  the  college 
the  drill-work  should  at  each  successive  stage  give 
ampler  and  still  ampler  place  for  the  reflective  and 
aesthetic  activities  of  the  pupil. 

In  the  mathematics  there  is  less  room  for  such  a  pro- 
gress. The  pure  mathematics  can  never  be  anything 
but  a  pure  g}'mnastic  to  sharp  analysis,  to  severe  ab- 
straction, and,  above  all,  to  persistent  and  sustained 
attention.  Their  charms  must  always  be  severe  ;  the 
lights  which  they  reflect  must  ever  be  colorless  and  dry. 
The  practical  uses  to  which  they  may  be  turned  in  men- 
suration and  physics  cannot  divest  them  of  that  rigid 
severity  which  pertains  to  their  very  essence.  The 
/al?or  ipse  voluptas  in  this  discipline  comes  from  the 
consciousness  of  power  and  from  skill  in  invention. 
Upon  the  principles  of  the  advocates  for  useful  studies 
the  mathematics  should  not  be  enforced  at  all.  But 
even  on  the  theory  that  many  studies  are  valuable 
chiefly  as  a  g}^mnastic — "  the  grindstone  theory,"  as  Mr. 
Atkinson  calls  it — it  deserves  to  be  considered  whether 
the  mathematics  are  not  carried  too  far  for  their  highest 
efficiency  in  a  general  course ;  whether  excessive  tedi- 
ousness  and  painful  drudgery  are  not  sometimes  the 
effects  of  driving  a  class  into  too  minute  calculations, 
or  vexing  them  with  manifold  problems.  The  too  much 
is  better  than  the  too  little,  but  the  danger  is  that  a  fac- 
titious importance  may  be  attached  to  these  studies 
which  is  derived  from  the  axiomatic  assumptions  of  the 
self-styled  men  of  science  that  the  mathematics  are  for 
no  reason  to  be  curtailed — that  the  more  the  student  has 
of  their  abstractions,  the  more  concrete,  practical,  and 
useful  is  his  training.     The  students,  not  looking  at  the 


8o  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

matter  from  this  point  of  view,  may  not  be  animated 
with  a  kindred  enthusiasm  for  a  period  indefinitely 
long.  We  advocate  most  earnestly  an  enforced  and 
rigorous  mathematical  discipline,  but  in  a  course  of  gen- 
eral education  we  would  not  have  it  uselessly  or  injuri- 
ously prolonged.  Let  it  terminate  when  its  best  dis- 
ciplinary work  is  done.  The  college  is  not  bound  to 
yield  to  the  exactions  of  the  scientists,  and  prepare  all 
its  pupils  for  the  principia  of  Newton  or  the  calculations 
of  La  Place. 

We  would  propose  that  the  quantum  of  Mathemat- 
ical study  should  be  regulated  as  follows.  In  the  pure 
mathematics  let  the  principles  of  Algebra  be  taught  with 
a  sufficient  number  and  variety  of  problems  to  illustrate 
the  matter  and  to  test  the  powers.  The  more  intricate 
formulas  and  the  more  subtle  analyses  should  be  re- 
served for  honor  classes  or  sub-classes  who  might  ac- 
complish their  extra  work  in  the  same  number  of  les- 
sons which  are  allowed  to  those  whose  tastes  and  pow- 
ers are  less  decidedly  mathematical.  Geometry  might 
be  divided  into  the  Synthetic  and  Analytical,  the  first 
being  required  from  all,  the  second  from  the  select  or 
honor  students  only.  Trigonometry  and  Conic  Sections 
should  be  required,  because  both  are  essential  for  Physics 
and  Astronomy,  but  neither  should  be  pushed  for  the 
unmathematically  gifted  any  further  than  is  essential 
for  effective  discipline.  The  Calculus  should  not  be 
attempted  except  by  the  few.  By  the  same  rule  Math- 
ematical Physics  and  Astronomy  should  be  arranged 
for  two  grades  of  students.  Whether  the  more  extended 
and  minute  course  should  be  limited  to  honor  students 
or  be  reserved  as  an  extra  or  perhaps  an  elective  study 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  8 1 

must  depend  upon  considerations  which  will  vary  in  dif- 
ferent cases. 

We  urge  this  modification  for  the  reasons  already 
suggested.  While  the  mathematical  discipline  is  ener- 
getic and  specific  in  its  character,  its  efficiency  is  soon 
exhausted  for  those  minds  to  whom  it  is  for  any  reason 
positively  offensive,  whether  from  defect  of  capacity  or 
defect  of  early  application.  We  may  explain  the  fact 
as  we  will,  the  fact  remains  indisputable,  that  to  many 
college  students  who  are  conscientious  and  diligent,  the 
mathematics  are  more  or  less  of  a  weariness  and  an 
offense.  They  neither  quicken  nor  discipline  the  mind 
that  is  forced  to  efforts  to  which  it  cannot  arouse  itself 
or  is  tasked  with  problems  which  it  cannot  master.  To 
certain  attainments  such  persons  may  and  should  be 
constrained,  but  these  attainments  should  be  within 
their  comprehension  and  mastery.  To  drive  this  class 
of  students  hither  and  thither,  backwards  and  forwards, 
through  a  maze  of  which  they  cannot  steadily  follow 
the  clue  and  along  thickets  whose  thorns  they  cannot 
avoid,  is  contrary  to  the  wisest  economy  in  the  ad- 
ministration of  disciplinary  studies.  While  we  cannot 
share  in  the  depreciation  of  the  mathematics  which  too 
many  classicists  and  humanitarians  advocate,  we  do  not 
deny  that  their  best  results  would  be  more  effectually  ac- 
complished, if  the  intellects  of  fewer  of  the  unmathe- 
matical  by  nature  were  less  perseveringly  bewildered 
and  obtunded  by  the  prolonged  infliction  of  hopeless 
tasks  and  demonstrations,  in  which  for  them  nothing 
is  so  clearly  demonstrated  as  their  incapacity  to  master 
them. 

The    drill-work  of  classical  study  might  also  be  ex- 


82  '      THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

changed  by  degrees  for  those  higher  enjoyments  to 
which  the  ancient  writers  invite  when  their  works  are 
read  as  hterature,  or  are  studied  with  logical  or  aesthetic 
analysis,  or  are  recited  with  a  distinct  regard  to  rhetor- 
ical praxis  and  improvement.  Here  the  question  presents 
itself,  whether  the  mere  grammatical  analysis  has  not 
been  pushed  to  a  one-sided  extreme  so  as  to  be  over- 
refined,  unnecessarily  complicated,  and  unreasonably 
prolonged  ;  whether  in  the  modern  form  in  which  it  is 
taught,  it  is  not  both  prematurely  enforced  and  unwisely 
continued ;  and  whether  "the  importance  which  is  at- 
tached to  it  has  not  seriously  interfered  with  some 
more  important  benefits  which  might  be  derived  from 
another  method  of  classical  study.  When  we  speak  of 
the  modern  form  of  classical  grammar,  we  refer  to 
those  etymological  analyses  and  constructions  which 
are  better  fitted  to  interest  comparative  philologists  than 
tyros  in  the  Latin  and  Greek  derivations  and  paradigms, 
and  to  those  syntactical  rules  which  are  more  easily  fol- 
lowed by  the  philosophical  grammarian  or  the  meta- 
physical student  of  language,  than  they  can  be  by  the 
less  advanced  pupil.  The  modern  system  is  immensely 
superior  to  the  ancient  in  its  gymnastic  results,  and,  in- 
deed, to  those  who  can  compass  it,  in  its  logical  and 
psychological  discipline.  But  it  is  an  open  question 
which  we  desire  may  be  definitely  proposed  and  thor- 
oughly discussed,  whether  this  gymnastic  is  not  some- 
times premature  and  over  driven,  and  whether  in  some 
of  its  consequences  it  does  not  supersede  very  important 
influences  of  classical  study,  as  well  as  weaken  faith  in, 
and  enthusiasm  for,  classical  study  itself. 

Prof.  Francis  Bowen's  remarks  upon  this  point  seem 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  83 

eminently  worthy  of  attention.  "  Formerly  we  studied 
grammar  in  order  to  read  the  classics ;  now-a-days  the 
classics  seem  to  be  studied  as  a  means  of  learning 
grimraar.  Surely  a  more  effectual  means  could  not 
have  been  invented  of  rendering  the  pupil  insensible  to 
the  beauties  of  the  ancient  poets,  orators,  and  historians, 
of  inspiring  disgust  alike  with  Homer  and  Virgil,  Xeno- 
phon  and  Tacitus,  than  to  make  their  words  mere  pegs 
on  which  to  hang  long  disquisitions  on  the  latest  re- 
finements in  philology,  and  attempts  to  systematize  eu- 
phonic changes  and  other  free  developments  of  stems 
and  roots. '^  "  Classical  learning  seems  to  me  to  have 
steadily  declined  in  this  country  of  late  years,  in  re- 
spect both  to  the  number  of  its  votaries  and  to  its 
estimation  with  the  public  at  large,  just  in  proportion 
as  its  professors  and  teachers  have  diminished  the  time 
and  effort  bestowed  on  reading  the  classics,  in  order  to 
enforce  more  minute  attention  to  the  mysteries  of 
Greek  accentuation  and  the  metaphysics  of  the  sub- 
junctive mood."     (Classical  Studies,  pp.  23,  24.) 

The  protest  in  Great  Britain  is  equally  earnest  and 
strong  against  the  use  of  a  cumbrous  grammar — 
whether  the  old  or  the  new — at  the  beginning  of  the 
study  of  Latin  and  Greek,  and  the  continuance  of  this 
use  so  as  to  displace  the  extensive  reading  of  classical 
authors  and  the  acquisition  of  a  coj)ious  vocabulary  of 
Greek  and  Latin  Avords.  In  the  opinion  of  many,  the 
cause  of  classical  learning  is  brought  into  serious  danger 
from  the  two-fold  exposures  arising  from  verse  compo- 
sition and  "high  grammar."  Matthew  Arnold  insists 
that  as  the  result  of  the  present  discussions,  "for  the 
mass  of  boys  the  Latin  and  Greek  composition  will  be 


84  *    THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

limited  as  we  now  limit  our  French,  Italian,  and  German 
com.position,  to  the  exercises  of  translation  auxiliary  ra 
acquiring  any  knowledge  soundly  ;  and  the  verbal  schol- 
arship will  be  limited  to  learning  the  elementary  grammar 
and  common  forms  and  laws  of  the  language  with^^ 
thoroughness  which  cannot  be  too  exact,  and  which 
may  easily  be  more  exact  than  that  which  we  now  at- 
tain with  our  much  more  ambitious  grammatical  stud- 
ies."    (Schools  and  Universities,  etc.,  p.  266.) 

In  the  best  American  colleges  the  grammatical  anal- 
ysis is  far  more  minute,  comprehensive,  and  philosoph- 
ical than  it  was  twenty  years  ago.  No  one  can  doubt 
that  as  a  gymnastic  it  is  far  more  efficient,  and  that  the 
student  brings  away  from  it  a  far  more  perfect  disci- 
pline, as  well  as  a  better  grounded  knowledge  of  the 
history  and  structure  of  the  languages  themselves. 
This  discipline  has  been  of  immense  service  to  those 
who  have  taught  the  languages  to  others,  as  well  as  to 
all  who  have  proceeded  to  the  study  of  special  or  gen- 
eral philology.  It  is  questionable,  however,  whether  it 
has  conduced  to  a  better  knowledge  of  the  Latin  and 
Greek  literature,  or  to  a  warmer  enthusiasm  for  the 
reading  of  the  ancient  authors.  It  is  contended  by  its 
defenders  that  the  decline  of  zeal  and  activity  in  these 
directions  is  owing  to  many  causes,  and  that  among  them 
the  modern  methods  of  teaching  cannot  be  enumerated. 
We  will  not  discuss  the  question  here.  We  observe,  how- 
ever, that  since  the  introduction  of  the  modern  system, 
the  lessons  in  the  classics  have  been  materially  shortened, 
and  the  use  of  translations  has  become  frightfully  preva- 
lent. The  lessons  must  be  short,  if  the  whole  of  each  is 
to  be  afialyzed  by  the  student  in  the  class-room.     The 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  8$ 

construing  of  a  short  lesson  can  be  easily  mastered  by 
the  aid  of  a  translation.  But  to  read  several  pages  with 
a  translation  must  be  very  onerous,  and  the  indo- 
lent and  self-indulgent  would  soon  find  that  it  saves 
little,  if  any,  labor.  The  superior  scholars  are  soon 
at  home  in  the  more  frequently  recurring  relations  of 
etvmology  and  syntax,  and  they  readily  master  the 
short  exercises  for  translation,  whether  they  do  or  do 
not  resort  to  an  English  version.  As  a  consequence, 
after  they  reach  a  certain  point  of  attainment  their 
energies  are  occupied  in  other  directions.  They  either 
tire  of  classical  study,  or  fail  to  be  inspired  with  a  high 
literary  interest  in  it.  The  scholars  of  a  middling 
rank  use  translations  without  scruple,  and  expend 
their  chief  energies  upon  the  ever  recurring  analysis. 
By  dint  of  effort  they,  in  a  sort,  master  it,  but  it  is  at 
the  sacrifice  of  what,  at  a  certain  stage  of  the  mind's 
development,  is  of  greater  importance  to  the  general 
scholar.  The  dull  labor  on  in  the  same  painful  round, 
with  scarcely  a  gleam  of  light.  Poor  fellows  !  They  get 
little  comfort  from  the  grammar,  but  perhaps  they 
might  learn  to  read  their  "  small  Latin  and  less  Greek" 
with  some  satisfaction,  if  there  were  more  of  both  as- 
signed them.  The  negligent  rely  on  their  tact  at  im- 
provising, being  guided  by  familiarity  with  the  teacher's 
oft  returning  questions,  and  hastily  run  over  the  short 
lesson  of  the  day  with  the  help  of  an  English  version. 
We  offer  with  diffidence  our  own  opinion,  but  would 
propose,  however,  that  the  following  experiment  should 
be  fairly  tried.  Let  the  time  of  short  lessons  and  of 
special  analysis  terminate  with  the  Freshman  year  or  a 
little  later.  To  grammatical  exercises,  as  a  chief  matter, 
and  Jo  the  hopelessly  dull  or  wilfully  negligent  who  have 


86  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

failed  thoroughly  to  master  them,  we  would  say,  "  There 
is  a  time  for  all  things  ;  the  grammar  has  had  its  chance 
for  you,  and  you  have  had  your  chance  at  the  gram- 
mar." Let  both  go  their  own  way.  They  must  give 
way  to  something  better  :  xaiQirmoav.  For  the  remain- 
der of  the  course  let  the  lessons  be  very  long  in  com- 
paratively easy  Latin  and  Greek  authors.  Let  them  be 
so  long  that  the  use  of  translations  shall  be  either 
superfluous  or  even  burdensome.  Let  the  ^^pofiies'^  and 
the  '^ pigmies'^  who  ride  upon  them,  be  fairly  drowned 
out  by  the  quantity  of  the  text  which  is  assigned  to  be 
read.  Let  the  attention  be  directed  to  the  import  of 
the  matter,  to  the  logical  connections  and  transitions 
of  the  thoughts,  to  the  peculiarities  of  diction,  and  to  a 
constant  praxis  in  felicitous  and  idiomatic  English  ren- 
dering ;  the  possibility  being  always  held  in  reserve  and 
not  sparingly  applied,  of  exposing  presumption  and 
neglect  by  test  questions  in  respect  to  grammar  or 
meaning.  Let  the  examinations  be  rigid  upon  the  in- 
structions and  analyses  of  the  teacher,  and  let  rapid 
and  current  reading  be  encouraged,  with  frequent  re- 
views, for  the  sake  of  enlarging  one's  vocabulary.  Let 
reading  by  phrases  and  by  the  eye,  without  reconstruct- 
ing the  words  after  the  English  order,  be  recommended 
and  enforced.  Let  an  intellectual  spirit,  and  an  aesthetic 
feeling  for  the  peculiarities  in  thought  and  diction  of 
the  author  read,  be  earnestly  fostered.  It  seems  to  us 
that  the  experiment  deserves  to  be  tried,  and  that  it 
could  not  fail  to  be  attended  with  gratifying  success. 
Should  this  experiment  be  thought  too  radical,  it  might 
be  tried  occasionally,  by  giving  up  to  it  the  whole  or  a 
part  of  a  college  term.  Or  after  the  end  of  the  Fresh- 
man year  the  two  descriptions  of  lessons  and  examin- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  87 

.ations  might  be  interchanged  ;  longer  or  shorter  periods 
Deing  allotted  to  each,  at  the  instructor's  discretion. 

The  question  also  deserves  to  be  considered  whether 
tne  interests  of  classical  education  have  not  suffered 
very  seriously  by  commencing  the  study  of  Latin  and 
Ureek  too  early,  and  thus  burdening  the  school  and 
college  life  with  a  tedium  and  monotony  inseparable 
irom  early  school  lessons  in  languages  remote  from 
iamiliar  associations,  and  from  the  continuance  of  les- 
sons in  the  same  language  for  a  period  of  ten  or  twelve 
years.  If  classical  studies  were  delayed  to  the  age  of 
fourteen  or  fifteen,  and  meanwhile  the  youths  were  thor- 
oughly drilled  in  a  single  living  language,  and  taught  to 
write  and  speak  it  correctly  and  readily,  the  Latin  and 
Greek  themselves  would  be  commenced  with  very  great 
advantage,  and  would  be  prosecuted  with  a  far  more 
intelligent  and  freshened  interest.  We  are  quite  cer- 
tain, that,  so  far  as  the  objections  to  the  study  of  the 
classics  have  any  show  of  reason,  they  are  derived  from 
imperfect  methods  of  teaching  and  studying.  Such  ob- 
jections can  be  effectually  answered  by  a  change  in 
these  methods  ;  and  he  is  the  truest  friend  to  classical 
culture  and  college  discipline  who  holds  himself  ready 
to  consider  how  far  such  changes  are  expedient  or  prac- 
ticable. Our  interest  in  this  matter  arises  from  our  de- 
sire that  a  new  enthusiasm  may  be  kindled  in  classical 
studies.  We  are  especially  desirous  that  the  taste  for 
Greek  literature,  and  the  interest  in  the  Greek  language, 
should  be  fostered  in  the  colleges  of  this  countr}^,  as 
one  of  the  essential  conditions  of  a  generous  and  re- 
fined culture.  The  Latin  language  is  so  much  more 
thoroughly  mastered  as  less  to  need  fostering  care. 

We    trust   that   the    classical   teachers    will    not   be 


88  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

offended  that  we  invite  their  earnest  attention  to  the 
suggestions  which  we  have  offered.  It  is  neither  to  be 
disguised  nor  denied  that  for  many  reasons  the  confi- 
dence of  many  of  our  best  students  in  the  value  of  clas- 
sical studies  as  pursued  in  our  colleges  has,  of  late,  been 
seriously  impaired.  The  protraction  of  the  school 
method,  the  imposition  of  difficult  authors,  the  confine- 
ment of  the  attention  for  years  to  refined  grammatical 
subtleties,  and  above  all  the  failure  to  encourage  the 
habit  of  the  current  reading  of  easy  authors  in  large 
qiiajitities^  with  chief  attention  to  the  meaning^  and  con- 
stajitly  to  require  a  free,  facile  rendering  bito  idiomatic 
English,  are  in  part,  not  wholly,  the  explanation  of  this 
decay  of  enthusiasm  for  classical  study  as  a  literary 
discipline.  The  disciplinary  and  the  philological  results 
of  the  classical  course  were  never  so  effective  and  valu- 
able as  at  present.  Its  literary  advantages  and  what  may 
be  called  its  indirect  influence  were  never  greater. 
What  we  desire  to  see  reinforced  is  its  direct  influence 
in  inspiring  a  love  for  the  best  classical  authors 
and  in  imparting  an  enthusiastic  desire  to  read  them 
fluently.  We  see  no  reason  why,  with  the  greatly  in- 
creased facilities  for  a  thorough  grammatical  prepara- 
tion and  with  the  admirable  philological  and  grammat- 
ical instruction  of  the  Freshman  year,  this  most  desira- 
ble result  may  not  be  effected.  By  curretit  reading  we 
mean  first,  the  reading  by  the  eye  without  the  necessity 
of  transposing  the  words  out  of  their  succession  ;  lit- 
erally dislocati?ig  them  in  more  than  one  sense  of  the 
word,  in  order  to  replace  them,  in  the  English  order — 
which  in  this  instance  is  to  displace  them  ;  second,  we 
mean  the  habit  of  reading  without  translating  the  words 
into  the  English  equivalents.     This  implies  a  complete 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  89 

familiarity  with  the  common  vocabulary  of  the  author 
read.  Facility  in  these  two  particulars  would  of  neces- 
sity involve  the  capacity  to  reproduce  the  sentences  of 
the  author  in  idiomatic  if  not  elegant  English,  and  the 
habit  of  current  reading  would  impart  facility  in  idio- 
matic and  felicitous  rendering.  Habits  of  reading  in 
this  way  would  favor,  if  they  did  not  compel,  a  direct  and 
constant  attention  to  the  meaning  of  the  author — to  his 
opinions  and  arguments  if  the  treatise  is  logical,  to  his 
imagery  and  diction,  and  also  his  sentiments  and  feel- 
ings^ if  he  is  an  historian  or  poet.  To  the  formation  of 
these  habits  of  classical  reading  and  the  achievement  of 
these  objects,  the  authors  selected  must  at  first  be  com- 
paratively easy,  the  lessons  must  be  long,  and  there  must 
be  enforced  in  the  preparation  for  the  class-room  a  con- 
stant and  comprehensive  attention  to  every  matter  in 
which  a  literary  critic  and  a  liberal  student  ought  to  be 
interested.  Most  of  all,  the  habit  of  frequently  review- 
ing a  single  easy  treatise  must  be  insisted  on  and  se- 
cured so  far  as  is  possible  by  every  form  of  recom- 
mendation that  can  be  reiterated  and  by  ever^^  device 
that  can  be  suggested  to  make  the  recommendation 
effectual.  We  cite  the  record  of  the  experience  of 
Daniel  Wyttenbach  when  he  returned  to  the  study 
of  Greek  a  second  time.  "  I  took  out  of  a  corner 
Plutarch's  treatise  on  the  Education  of  Boys,  and 
read  it  once  and  again,  with  much  effort,  but  little 
pleasure.  Then  I  went  over  with  Herodian,  which  af- 
forded me  a  little  more  enjoyment,  but  was  far  from 
satisfying  my  mind.  I  accidentally  found,  elsewhere, 
Xenophon's  Memorabilia,  Ernesti's  edition,  which  I  had 
before  known  only  by  name.  I  was  captivated  with  the 
indescribable  sweetness  of  that  author.     The  grounds 


90  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

of  it  I  better  understood  afterwards.  In  studying  this 
treatise,  I  made  it  a  point  never  to  begin  a  section  with- 
out re-perusing  tlie  preceding  ;  nor  a  chapter  or  book, 
without  studying  the  preceding  chapter  and  book  a  sec- 
ond time.  Having,  at  length,  completed  the  work  in 
this  manner,  I  again  read  the  whole  in  course.  It  oc- 
cujDied  me  almost  three  months  ;  but  such  unceasing 
repetition  was  most  serviceable  to  me." 

How  serviceable  it  proved  can  best  be  told  in  his 
own  words  :  "  All  the  works  of  Xenophon,  the  Memor- 
abilia excepted,  I  read  four  times  in  four  months.  I 
now  thought  that  I  could  read  any  author  with  equal 
ease.  I  took  up  Demosthenes.  I  had  a  copy  without 
a  Latin  translation,  but  accompanied  by  the  Greek  notes 
of  Jerome  Wolf.  Darkness  itself!  But  I  had  learned 
not  to  be  frightened  in  setting  out.  I  went  on.  I 
found  greater  difficulties  than  I  had  ever  had  before, 
both  in  the  words,  and  in  the  length  of  the  sentences. 
At  last,  with  much  ado,  I  reached  the  end  of  the  first 
Olynthiac.  I  then  read  it  a  second  and  a  third  time. 
Every  thing  now  appeared  plain  and  clear.  Still,  I 
did  not  yet  perceive  the  fire  of  eloquence  for  which  he 
is  distinguished.  I  hesitated  whether  to  proceed  to  the 
second  oration,  or  agam  read  the  first.  I  resolved  to 
do  the  latter.  How  salutary  are  the  effects  of  such  a 
review !  As  I  read,  an  altogether  new  and  unknown 
feeling  took  possession  of  me.  In  perusing  other  au- 
thors, my  pleasure  had  arisen  from  a  perception  of  the 
thoughts  and  words,  or  from  a  consciousness  of  my  own 
progress.  Now,  an  extraordinary  feeling  pervaded  my 
mind,  and  increased  with  every  fresh  perusal.  I  saw 
the  orator  on  fire,  in  anguish,  impetuously  borne  for- 
ward.    I  was  inflamed  also,  and   carried  on  upon   the 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  qi 

same  tide.  I  was  conscious  of  a  new  elevation  of  soul 
and  wa9  ^o  longer  the  sa*ne  individual.  I  seemed  my- 
self tc  ,i^  X^f.mosthenes,  standing  on  the  bema,  pourino- 
htxh  this  oration,  and  urging  the  Athenians  to  emulate 
the  bravery  and  glory  of  their  ancestors.  Neither  did 
I  read  silently,  as  I  had  begun,  but  with  a  loud  voice,  to 
which  I  was  secretly  impelled  by  the  force  and  fervor 
of  the  sentiments,  as  well  as  by  the  power  of  oratorical 
rhythm.  In  this  manner  I  read,  in  the  course  of  three 
months,  most  of  the  orations  of  Demosthenes.  My 
ability  to  understand  an  author  being  thus  increased,  I 
took  more  delight  in  Homer,  whom  I  soon  finished. 
Afterwards  I  studied  other  great  authors,  with  far  more 
profit." 

These  words  seem  to  us  to  be  golden  words,  and  to 
contain  the  suggestion  of  a  plan  of  classical  instruction 
and  study  which  may  be  enforced  with  the  greatest  ad- 
vantage in  the  more  advanced  classes  of  the  American 
Colleges.  While  no  friend  of  a  sound  education  would 
be  willing  to  strike  or  lower  the  flag  of  classical  study 
and  culture,  at  the  demand  of  illiterate  utilitarians,  it 
deserves  to  be  asked  whether  we  shall  not  raise  it  still 
higher  and  fling  it  more  defiantly  to  the  breeze.  Let 
the  classics  be  so  studied  in  our  higher  classes  that  they 
shall  be  loved  and  admired  as  literature,  and  they  will 
need  no  argument  for  their  vindication. 

But  we  have  lingered  too  long  upon  this  topic.  We 
proceed  to  consider  some  of  the  more  general  peculiar- 
ities of  the  American  Colleges. 


92  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


III. 

THE  PRESCRIBED   CURRICULI  \T. 

The  first  peculiarity  which  we  shall  notice,  is  ^j\  the 
same  course  of  study  has  been  uniformly  prescribed  as 
a  condition  for  the  Bachelor's  degree.  We  say  "  uni- 
fonnly^^^  for  the  exceptions  have  been  so  few  as  scarcely 
to  deserve  to  be  named,  and  any  deviations,  when  al- 
lowed for  a  time,  have  very  soon  been  abandoned. 
When  we  say  "  has  been^^^  we  do  not  include  the  few 
years  which  have  just  elapsed,  within  which  some  influ- 
ential colleges  have  abandoned,  in  part,  a  prescribed 
and  uniform  curriculum,  and  introduced  very  largely,  the 
system  of  elective  or  optional  courses  of  study.  The 
period  in  which  we  are  now  living  is  eminently  one  of 
reconstruction  and  experiment,  and  with  its  tendencies 
and  movements  the  colleges  seem  to  have  largely  sym- 
pathized. The  college  which  we  describe  is  not  the 
college  of  the  passing  year,  or  of  the  current  five  years, 
but  the  college  of  past  years,  and  of  the  present  gen- 
eration. 

The  theory  of  education,  after  which  a  curriculum  of 
study  has  been  prescribed,  has  been,  that  certain  studies 
(among  which  the  classics  and  mathematics  are  promi- 
nent) are  best  fitted  to  prepare  a  man  for  the  most  effi- 
cient and  successful  discharge  of  public  duty.  By  "  public 
dnty"we  do  not  mean  merely  professional  duty,  but  duty 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


93 


in  that  relatively  commanding  position,  which  a  thor- 
oughly cultured  man  is  fitted  to  occupy.  By  a  thor- 
oughly cultured  man  we  mean  a  man  who  has  been 
trained  to  know  himself  in  his  constitution,  his  duties, 
and  his  powers  ;  to  know  society  in  its  history  and  in- 
stitutions, its  literature  and  art ;  and  to  know  nature  in 
its  developments  and  scientific  relations.  The  liberal 
education  which  the  colleges  have  uniformly  proposed 
to  give  is  none  other  than  what  Milton  calls  the  "  com- 
plete and  generous  education,"  that  "fits  a  man  to 
perform  justly,  skillfully,  and  magnanimously,  all  the 
offices,  both  private  and  public,  of  peace  and  war."  It 
is  a  very  serious  mistake  to  say  that,  historically  con- 
sidered, the  education  for  which  the  colleges  arranged 
their  preparatory  curriculum  was  what  is  technically 
called  a  professional  education,  and  that  these  studies 
are  especially  necessary  for  persons  destined  to  one  of 
the  three  learned  professions.  It  is  doubtless  true,  that 
the  studies  of  the  English  universities,  from  w^hich  the 
American  colleges  are  historically  derived,  were  origi- 
nally arranged  with  special  reference  to  the  clerical  pro- 
fession, and  that  to  this  day  some  of  the  peculiarities 
thus  induced  have  not  been  entirely  outgrown.  The 
first  American  colleges  were  also  primarily  founded  as 
training  schools  for  the  clerg}^,  but  as  the  other  pro- 
fessions came  to  require  a  liberal  culture,  this  special 
reference  to  the  clerical  profession  was  laid  aside.  It 
would  be  more  exact  to  say  that  these  universities  and 
colleges  were  at  first  designed  to  give  a  professional  as 
well  as  a  liberal  education.  To  use  the  language  cur- 
rent in  the  United  States,  they  combined  the  function 
of  the  professional  school  with  that  now  assigned  to  the 


94  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

college.  But  the  English  universities  and  the  Amer- 
ican colleges  were  also  designed,  from  an  early  period, 
to  educate  gentlemen  as  well  as  scholars.  But  inas- 
much as  in  the  earlier,  and  in  that  respect  at  least  the 
better  days,  every  gentleman  was  supposed  to  take  some 
position  in  society  as  a  legislator  or  magistrate,  a  diplo- 
mat or  soldier,  the  same  education  was  deemed  suit- 
able for  all  who  aspired  to  what  we  have  called  a  pub- 
lic position.  These  liberal  studies  were  not  thought 
unsuitable  even  for  the  duties  and  station  of  a  mer- 
chant, especially  of  one  who  might  be  a  prince  among 
his  fellow  merchants  in  generous  tastes,  wide  infor- 
mation, courtly  manners,  and  refined  accomplishments. 
Moreover,  it  ought  never  to  be  forgotten  that  the  natural 
sciences  were  never  formally  excluded  from  the  scheme 
of  university  studies.  Even  the  scholastics  included  in 
their  scheme  of  liberal  knowledge  the  sciences  of  nature 
then  received,  and  made  an  acquaintance  with  them  an 
essential  element  of  the  lib'eral  education  of  their  times. 
The  American  colleges  have  done  the  same  from  the 
earliest  period.  They  have  never,  either  in  form  or  in 
fact,  excluded  these  sciences.  Nor  is  the  question  now 
mooted  in  any  of  them  whether  these  sciences  shall  be 
excluded  from  the  liberal  share  which  they  possess  of  the 
curriculum.  It  is  whether  these  sciences  are  to  give 
law  to  all  the  others,  whether  they  shall  either  occupy 
the  entire  field  of  liberal  culture  or  direct  the  selection 
of  studies  in  their  own  exclusive  interest,  so  that  the 
classics  shall  give  way  to  French  and  German,  because 
these  last  are  more  essential  to  the  student  of  nature, 
and  are,  as  is  contended,  equally  well  adapted  to  gen- 
eral culture. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  95 

We  contend  that  the  American  colleges  have  been  in 
the  right  in  requiring  a  prescribed  course  of  study  as 
the  condition  for  a  degree.  In  support  of  this  opinion 
we  shall  offer  no  extended  argument  in  addition  to  those 
we  have  already  presented,  but  shall  occujDy  ourselves 
chiefly  with  the  arguments  that  are  urged  against  it. 
If  the  considerations  already  urged  are  admitted  to  be 
pertinent  and  convincing,  our  argument  is  complete. 
If  it  be  conceded  that  the  studies  which  have  been 
usually  prescribed  in  the  American  colleges  are  the 
best  fitted  to  impart  a  liberal  culture,  then  it  follows 
that  the  practice  of  these  colleges  in  making  them  the 
ordinary  conditions  for  the  first  degree  is  well  grounded 
and  ought  to  be  adhered  to.  If  our  argument  concern- 
ing the  theory  of  the  curriculum  of  studies  is  valid, 
then  these  studies  ought  to  be  prescribed.  There  is 
not  a  single  study  that  is  superfluous.  Not  one  should 
be  displaced,  because  not  one  can  be  spared.  The 
theory  of  this  curriculum  has  been  to  provide  for  all 
those  studies  which  could  properly  find  a  place  in  a 
system  of  liberal  culture,  or  should  enter  into  the 
scheme  of  a  complete  and  generous  education.  The 
end  has  not  been  to  train  men  for  the  learned  pro- 
fessions as  such,  but  to  train  for  that  position  in  life 
which  many  others  besides  professional  men  should 
aim  to  occupy.  For  such  a  position  the  curriculum  has 
been  arranged,  not  by  theorists  in  education,  nor  by  the 
traditional  adherents  to  an  hereditary  system  made  sa- 
cred by  hallowed  associations,  but  under  the  just  de- 
mands of  public  life  as  tested  by  long  experience  and 
confirmed  in  the  success  of  many  generations.  In  this 
curriculum  the  study  of  the  ancient  languages  has  been 


96  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

prominent  as  training  to  the  power  of  subtle  analysis  ; 
the  mathematics,  as  strengthening  to  continuity  and 
rigor  of  attention,  to  sharp  and  bold  discrimination ; 
physics,  to  give  power  over  nature, — real  power,  as  we 
wield  and  apply  her  forces,  and  intellectual,  as  we  in- 
terpret her  secrets,  predict  her  phenomena,  enforce  her 
laws,  and  re-create  her  universe  ;  psychology,  that  we 
may  know  ourselves  and  so  understand  the  instrument 
by  which  we  know  at  all ;  ethics,  that  we  may  rightly 
direct  the  springs  of  action  and  subject  the  individual 
will  to  the  consecrating  law  of  duty ;  political  science, 
that  we  may  know  the  state  as  to  the  grounds  and  limits 
of  its  authority;  the  science  of  religion,  that  we  may 
justify  our  faith  to  the  disciplined  and  instructed  rea- 
son ;  history,  that  we  may  trace  the  development  of 
man  and  the  moral  purposes  of  God  ;  logic,  rhetoric, 
and  literature,  that  the  powers  thus  enriched  and  thus 
trained  may  express  themselves  aptly  and  skillfully  by 
writing  and  in  speech. 

When  we  say  this  curriculum  has  been  prescribed,  we 
do  not  mean  that  the  student  has  been  forbidden  to 
pursue  other  studies,  nor  that  his  time  has  been  so  en- 
tirely occupied  and  engrossed  by  the  regular  course  as 
to  leave  no  opportunity  for  favorite  pursuits  or  general 
culture.  On  the  contrary,  the  college  course  has  usually 
contemplated  much  additional  labor  and  study,  and  has 
encouraged  such  efforts  and  indirectly  rewarded  them 
by  special  prizes  and  honors. 

Whether  or  not  academic  degrees  signify  little  or 
much,  whether  they  are  of  greater  value  or  less,  it  is 
clear  that  they  are  sought  for,  and  are  likely  to  be  in 
the  future,  and  that  they   ought,  therefore,  to    signify 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  97 

something.  The  something  which  they  should  signify 
is  the  having  pursued  with  more  or  less  fidelity  and 
success  those  branches  of  study  which  are  essential  to 
liberal  culture. 

We  do  not  observe  that  those  who  depreciate  the 
meaning  and  worth  of  the  degree  of  Bachelor  of  Arts 
are  any  the  less  anxious  or  determined  that  the  courses 
of  study  which  they  would  substitute  shall  entitle  to 
this  degree,  nor  are  they  less  affluent  in  inventing  a 
variety  of  subordinate  and  special  degrees  for  briefer 
and  less  comprehensive  courses  of  study.  The  two  let- 
ters B.  A.  are  certainly  as  significant  as  B.  S.,  D.  S., 
Ph.  B.,  C.  E.,  M.  E.,  if  they  are  not  as  valuable. 

A  strong  pressure  is  just  now  applied  to  induce  the 
colleges  to  abandon  both  the  theory  and  the  practice  of 
insisting  on  a  prescribed  course  of  study.  Some  are 
very  urgent  that  students  should  be  freely  admitted  to 
the  instructions  of  the  college  in  any  single  branch,  pro- 
vided they  are  qualified  to  receive  such  instruction,  even 
though  they  may  be  unable  or  disinclined  to  pursue  the 
other  studies  that  are  required  for  a  degree.  Others  in- 
sist that  no  course  of  study  should  be  prescribed  as  the 
condition  for  any  academic  honor,  but  that  instruction 
should  be  freely  dispensed  to  all  who  are  qualified  to 
appropriate  it ;  examinations  being  held  as  a  test  of 
progress  and  acquisition  in  the  departments  selected. 
Others  contend  that  several  parallel  courses  of  study 
should  be  assigned,  at  the  completion  of  any  of  which 
the  student  should  receive  the  same  or  a  different  de- 
gree. Others  propose  that  the  course  should  in' part  be 
prescribed  and  in  part  be  elective,  so  that  within  the 
limits  assigned  the  pupil  may  freely  select  the  studies 

5 


98  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

which  may  please  him  best,  and  on  passing  his  exami- 
nations shall  receive  the  common  degree. 

It  is  contended  by  the  advocates  of  these   several 
propositions  that  in  these  ways  we  can  exalt  the  college 
into  a  university  and  invest  it  with  the  dignity,  the  priv- 
ileges, and,  above  all,  with  the  freedom,  which  are  sup- 
posed to  belong  to  an  institution  with  the  more  high 
sounding  name.     All  these  projects  do  indeed  propose 
to    attach    to    the    college  some  of  the  features  which 
properly   belong   to    the    university,   viz.  :    freedom    of 
election,  the   gratification    of  special    jDreferences    and 
tastes,  real  or  supposed^  and  a  direct  preparation  for 
the  student's  contemplated    profession    or   business  in 
life.     But  they  all  fail  to  provide  or  require  the  feature 
which  gives  the  university  its  dignity  and  invests  its  name 
with  special  honor,  and  that  is  a  thorough  discipline  pre- 
viously undergone  and  a  liberal  culture  already  attained. 
These  are  indispensable  before  the  student  is  fit  to  ex- 
ercise the  freedom,  to  use  the  selection,  or  aiopreciate 
the    instructions   which   belong  to   the   university.      A 
university   consisting   of  uncultured  and   undisciplined 
youths,  whose  conceit  may  be  supposed  to  be  in  direct 
proportion  to  their  ignorance,  and  whose  self-confidence 
springs  out  of  their  lack  of  knowledge,  is  the  less  to  be 
desired  for  the  highest  ends  of  a  university  exactly  in 
proportion    to   the    amplitude    of  its    endowments,  the 
brilliancy  and  learning  of  its  professors,  and  the  san- 
guine hopefulness  of  its  numerous  friends.     Its  theory 
is  false  and  its  fruits  must  be  disappointing.     It  can 
only  become  what  it  calls  itself  when  it  shall  have  de- 
veloped within  itself  a  college  or  school  of  liberal  arts 
which   shall   train  fit  pupils  for  its  university  classes, 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


99 


and  when  it  shall  have  employed  in  its  several  schools 
the  curricula  and  methods  which  are  suitable  to  each. 

We  grant  that  it  may  be  desirable  to  establish  insti- 
tutions in  the  large  cities  and  in  the  newer  portions  of 
our  country,  on  the  principle  of  teaching  a  little  of 
ever)'thing  that  those  students  may  wish  to  study  whose 
elementary  education  is  deficient  and  whose  time  of 
attendance  on  either  liberal  or  professional  studies  must 
be  short.  A  little  knowledge  and  a  little  study  may 
be  of  the  greatest  service  to  persons  eager  to  learn. 
Large  endowments,  distinguished  professors,  ample  mu- 
seums, and  abundant  apparatus  may  serve  to  quicken 
the  intellects  and  to  stimulate  the  zeal  of  the  strong- 
minded  and  strong-hearted  young  men  to  whom  poverty, 
early  toil,  or  misfortune  have  abridged  the  period  of 
school  and  college  culture.  The  colleges  in  the  newer 
States,  which  have  a  small  number  of  students  in  their 
regular  course,  have  acted  wisely  and  beneficently  in  al- 
lowing the  attendance  of  irregular  and  optional  pupils, 
so  far  as  this  did  not  interfere  with  the  efficiency  and 
prestige  of  the  liberal  curriculum.  What  we  do  not  ap- 
prove, is  the  dignifying  of  institutions  of  any  kind  with 
the  name  of  universities,  when  they  lack  the  one  fea- 
ture which  gives  to  the  university  all  its  dignity  and  pe- 
culiar meaning,  and  that  is  the  presence  of  a  considera- 
ble body  of  students  of  liberal  culture  who  are  prepared 
by  that  culture  to  select  some  higher  department  of 
knowledge  and  to  pursue  it  under  the  teachers  of  their 
choice,  by  free  and  independent  methods  of  study.  For 
example  :  The  Michigan  University  has  been  more  than 
once  especially  extolled  as  till  recently  the  only  real 
university  in  the  United  States,  and  no  measured  lauda- 


lOO  THE    AMERICAN    CO'LLEGES 

tion  has  on  this  account  been  bestowed  upon  the  insti- 
tution and  the  enterprising  State  which  endowed  it. 
This  has  been  done  by  gentlemen  of  eminent  literary 
culture  and  of  high  position  in  older  institutions.  We 
have  never  been  able  to  learn  any  reason  for  these  en- 
comiums upon  this  institution,  nor  why  it  \spar  hninence 
a  university  in  comparison  with  Harvard,  except  that 
while  it  furnishes  a  considerable  number  of  well  quali- 
fied professors  in  many  departments  of  knowledge,  the 
students  are  permitted  to  some  extent  to  attend  upon 
more  or  fewer  of  these  courses  at  will,  without  the  con- 
dition of  previous  training  in  the  liberal  arts.  Other 
institutions  claim  that  as  compared  with  this  relatively 
conservative  university  they  are  entitled  to  be  called 
universities  sensii  eminentiori,  because  they  impose  only 
the  most  general  conditions  and  regulations  with  re- 
spect to  previous  preparation  or  the  choice  of  the  de- 
partments to  be  studied.  ^  They  argue,  in  effect,  that  is 
indeed  a  university  which  teaches  universal  knowledge 
universally — /.  e.^  to  all  comers — in  which  no  man  shall 
be  denied  who  asks  to  be  taught  anything.  But  this 
feature,  so  far  from  elevating  into  a  university  what 
might  have  been  a  college,  tends  to  degrade  what  might 
be  a  college  into  a  preparatory  school,  and  even  to  sink 
it  to  the  level  of  those  most  superficial  but  most  preten- 
tious things  called  "business  or  commercial  colleges." 
The  ineffable  assurance  and  the  contemptible  perform- 
ance of  these  peripatetic  and  short-lived  organizations 
are  sufficiently  notorious. 

It  ought,  as  it  would  seem,  to  be  an  axiom  in  educa- 
tion that,  to  successful  instruction,  the  capacity  of  the 
school  to  receive  is  as  essential  as  the  power  of  the  in- 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  lOI 

stnictor  to  give.  Pupils  capable  of  understanding  and 
appropriating  what  is  taught  are  as  necessary  as  instruc- 
tors who  are  qualified  to  teach.  Eminent  professors 
may  indeed  astonish  the  beginner  by  the  splendor  of 
their  generalizations,  the  boldness  of  their  theories,  the 
eloquence  of  their  deliver}^,  or  the  perfection  of  their 
style.  They  may  quicken  and  stimulate  to  industry  and 
ardor.  But  unless  their  hearers  or  pupils  are  already 
educated  to  the  capacity  of  understanding  and  appreci- 
ating their  teachings,  they  must  be  content  to  be  ranked 
with  the  brilliant  sciolist  and  the  splendid  declaimer, 
even  in  the  judgment  of  their  scholastic  audiences,  and 
in  the  judgment  of  the  public  to  rank  as  somewhat 
lower,  or,  perhaps,  at  best,  to  serve  as  imposing  figure 
heads  to  badly  trimmed  and  badly  sailing  vessels. 
Such  men  cannot  but  be  useful  indeed,  for  they  will  in- 
sensibly diffuse  the  spirit  and  impart  the  tone  of  a 
higher  scholarship  and  culture  to  not  a  few  of  the  raw 
and  uncultured  pupils  who  come  within  their  reach. 
But  the  partial  success  of  gifted  and  learned  professors, 
in  spite  of  the  defective  theory  of  the  institutions  with 
which  they  are  connected,  only  serves  the  more  strik- 
ingly to  illustrate  the  essential  defects  of  the  system  itself. 
The  modification  of  the  college  system,  which  we 
shall  next  consider,  is  that  which  does  not  abandon  a 
prescribed  curriculum,  but  makes  the  college  studies 
largely  elective.  This  does  not  sacrifice  the  college  to 
the  universit}^  system.  It  rather  combines  the  one  with 
the  other,  by  introducing  some  of  the  features  of  the 
university  into  the  system  of  the  college.  It  requires 
all  the  students  to  pursue  a  common  course  up  to  a  cer- 
tain period.     At  Harvard  College,  this  continues  to  the 


I02  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

end  of  the  Freshman  year ;  a  selection  is  then  allowed, 
till  the  end  of  the  course,  of  any  two  or  three  of 
certain  studies,  for  about  two-thirds  of  the  tune,  the 
remaining  third  being  devoted  to  certain  studies  pur- 
sued by  the  class  in  common.  Prominent  among  these 
elective  studies  are  the  ancient  languages  and  the  mathe- 
matics, to  the  end  of  the  course.  The  arguments  urged 
in  favor  of  this  system  are  these.  While  it  requires  all 
the  students  to  master  the  elements  of  liberal  knowledge, 
it  does  not  require  that  any  one  study  should  be  pursued 
to  such  an  extreme  as  to  weary  those  to  whom  it  is  dis- 
tasteful, or  to  take  the  place  of  studies  for  which  there  is 
a  marked  predilection  or  special  aptitude.  It  furnishes 
the  opportunity  to  the  student  to  make  a  selection  with 
some  reference  to  his  future  occupation  or  profession.' 
It  adopts  the  happy  medium  of  insisting  on  the  neces- 
sity of  a  common  groundwork  of  preparation  in  disci- 
plinary studies,  and  providing  for  each  an  election  as 
the  tastes  and  pursuits  of 'the  pupil  may  require.  It 
satisfies  the  devotee  of  any  special  department  of 
knowledge  by  allowing  him  to  follow  his  favorite  stud- 
ies. It  excites  him  by  the  emulation  and  sympathy  of 
fellow  students  as  eager  to  learn  and  as  ready  to  labor 
as  himself.  It  releases  the  instructor  from  the  intoler- 
able and  disgusting  drudgery  of  enforcing  upon  the  un- 
willing and  incompetent,  tasks  which  they  cannot  or 
will  not  perform,  and  gratifies  him  with  the  pleasure  of 
carrying  a  few  enthusiastic  pupils  far  beyond  the  ele- 
ments of  the  language  or  science  to  which  he  himself  is 
devoted.  It  tends  to  enthusiasm  in  study  and  is  fitted 
to  relieve  the  college  system  from  the  spirit  of  mechan- 
ical routine  into  which  it  is  so  apt  to  fall. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


103 


The  objections  to  the  scheme  are  many ;  some  of 
them  seem  to  us  to  be  insuperable.  They  may  be  ex- 
pressed briefly  thus  :  The  collegiate  course  will  be  so 
seriously  shortened  and  curtailed  as  to  fail  of  its  appro- 
priate results  ;  the  university  course,  which  it  is  pro- 
posed to  graft  upon  it,  will  be  prematurely  commenced, 
and,  for  that  reason,  cannot  be  really  successful.  Col- 
lege students,  at  the  end  of  the  Freshman  year,  are  usu- 
ally incapable  of  selecting  between  any  two  proposed 
studies  or  courses  of  study.  They  do  not  know  them- 
selves well  enough  to  be  able  to  decide  in  what  they 
are  best  fitted  to  excel,  nor  even  what  will  please  them 
best.  Their  future  occupation  is  ordinarily  not  so  far 
determined  as  to  deser\^e  to  be  seriously  considered. 
Their  tastes  are  either  unformed  or  capricious  and 
prejudiced  ;  if  they  are  decided  and  strong,  they  often 
require  correction.  The  study  which  is  the  farthest 
removed  from  that  which  strikes  his  fancy  may  be  the 
study  which  is  most  needed  for  the  student.  The  pref- 
erences are  also  likely  to  be  fickle.  The  real  but  un- 
anticipated difiiculties  which  are  revealed  by  trial  will 
occasion  discontent  and  vexation,  or  some  new  discov- 
ery concerning  the  value  of  a  study  that  has  been  re- 
jected, will  lead  to  ennui  and  discontent.  So  far  as 
the  studies  presented  for  selection  are  disciplinary,  the 
reasons  for  jDreferring  one  above  another  are  not  so  de- 
cisive as  to  warrant  any  great  liberty  of  election.  So 
far  as  they  are  professional  or  practical,  it  is  not  desir- 
able that  these  should  be  entered  upon  at  so  early  a  pe- 
riod of  the  education.  What  might  seem  to  be  gained 
in  proficiency  or  in  time,  is  lost  many  times  over  in 
mental  breadth  and  power  by  a  neglect  of  the   studies 


I04  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

which  are  disciplinary  and  general.     The   student  who 
begins   the  study  of  theology  or  law  in  his  Sophomore 
or  Junior  year,  or  pursues  a  course  of  reading  which  has 
special  relation  to   his  future  profession,  in   ninety   out 
of  a  hundred  instances  becomes  a  greatly  inferior  the- 
ologian or  lawyer  in  consequence,  and  does  not  appre- 
ciably abridge   the  time   required  for  his  professional 
preparation.     By  a  similar  rule,  any  very  special  atten- 
tion to  any  one  of  the  physical  sciences  in  the  way  of 
severe  scientific  study  or  of  time-consuming  occupation, 
is  almost  certain  to  involve  a  loss  in  scientific  acquisi- 
tions and   eminence   at  the   end  of  a   very  few  years. 
The  speciality  or  profession  to  which   a  student  is  to 
give  the  best  energies  and  the  exclusive  devotion  of  his 
life,  will  occupy  him  soon  enough  at  the  latest,  and  will 
confine  his  powers  as  well  as  rule  his  tastes  with  its  ab- 
sorbing demands.     All  that  he  can  spare  from  it  in  the 
way  of  energy,  preferences,  and  time,  is,  in  a  certain 
sense,  so  much  gained  to  his  mental  breadth,  and,  there- 
fore, to  his   final  eminence.     If  it  can  be  shown  that 
there  is  any  single  course  of  study  which  is  within  the 
capacities  of  the  majority  of  students  who  are  properly 
prepared  and  who  will  use   ordinary   diligence  ;  which 
includes  no  branch   of  knowledge  with  which  any  man 
of  liberal   education  ought  not  to  be  acquainted  ;   and 
if  also  these  branches  are  not  prosecuted  farther  than' 
is  desirable  for  the  ends  of  such  culture  ;  it  follows  that 
such   a  course  of  study  should  be  prescribed  in  every 
college.     This  is  especially  true  if  it  can  also  be  shown 
that  a  prescribed  course  can  be  so  modified  as  to  attain 
many  if  not  all  the  advantages  which  the  elective  course 
promises  to  achieve. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I05 

Other  objections  might  be  named,  as   that  the   intro- 
duction of  elective  studies   tends   to  weaken  the  class 
feeling,  which  may  be  so  efficient  for  intellectual  incite- 
ment and  culture,  and   to   interfere  with  that  common 
life  which  is  so  powerful  in  most  of  the  American  col- 
leges.    It  must  necessarily  be   complicated   in  its   ar- 
rangements and  operose  in  its  working.     It  must  also 
require  greater  energy  than  can  be  exacted  of  any  sin- 
gle administrator  who  acts  as  the  driving  wheel   of  the 
class  or  the  college  ;    or  greater  united  and  conspiring 
activity  in  the  heads  of  separate  departments  than  can 
be  presumed  in  ordinary  institutions  or  under  the  con- 
ditions  of  our  imperfect  humanit}\     It  may  further  be 
urged  that  the  existence  of  a  prescribed,  rather  than  an 
elective  curriculum  in  the  preparatory^  or  the  profes- 
sional school,  was  originally  the  result  of  circumstan- 
ces and  the  product  of  experience.     The  same  circum- 
stances that  compelled  and  the  same  experience  which 
taught  it  at  first,  will,  we  believe,  require  that  it  be  re- 
sumed as  often  as  the  attempt  is  made  to  abandon  it  in 
any  institution  which  is   designed  for  general  culture. 
The  inconvenience  will  be  found  to  be  so  great  and  the 
advantages  so  inconsiderable — if,  indeed,  the  disadvan- 
tages   are    not   so   manifold  and  overwhelming — as   to 
compel  a  return  to  what  is  substantially  a  uniform  and 
prescribed  course.     We  have  intimated  that  most  of  the 
advantages  promised  by  the  elective,  may  be  secured  by 
the  prescribed  curriculum.     It  does  not  follow  because 
the  same  branches  of  study  are  pursued  that  they  must 
be  prosecuted  by  all  the  students  to  the  same  extent  or 
with  the  same  thoroughness.     A  minimum  of  classical 
study  may  be  allowed,  while   a  maximum  may  be  re- 


I06  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

warded.  A  passable  knowledge  of  the  mathematics 
may  be  accepted,  while  a  more  thorough  mastery  of 
these  branches  may  meet  with  encouragement  and  the 
more  difficult  problems  need  be  assigned  to  but  few. 
An  arrangement  or  curriculum  of  pass  studies  prescribed 
for  all,  which  shall  be  thorough  and  severe,  is  not  in- 
compatible with  provision  for  class  or  honor  studies^ 
which  shall  be  the  conditions  of  academical  prizes  and 
distinctions.  Private  studies  may  also  be  provided  for, 
to  a  limited  extent,  especially  in  those  branches  of  liter- 
ature, English  or  modern,  which  are  the  favorite  and 
not  severe  occupation  of  many  persons  who  are  not  in- 
clined to  the  severer  efforts  required  by  philosophy  or 
science.  The  division  of  classes  into  subordinate  sec- 
tions, according  to  attainment,  provides  for  a  varying 
adaptation  to  different  tastes  and  capacities.  Enthusi- 
asm in  study,  the  want  of  which  is  so  much  to  be  de- 
plored, and  the  maintenance  of  a  high  intellectual 
tone,  the  presence  of  which  is  so  greatly  to  be  desired, 
can  be  obtained,  we  believe,  as  successfully  under  the 
prescribed  as  under  the  elective  curriculum. 

We  have  said  that  in  almost  every  organized  institu- 
tion of  education  in  the  civilized  world,  whether  liberal 
or  professional,  some  curriculum  of  study  is  presented 
as  the  condition  of  receiving  the  honors  of  the  institu- 
tion, or  of  being  admitted  to  public  employment.  The 
fact  that  several  such  courses  are  united  in  the  same  in- 
stitution makes  it  to  be  a  university,  which  is  therefore 
properly  conceived  when  it  embraces  a  collection  of 
schools  of  learning,  in  each  of  which  certain  studies  are 
prescribed,  certain  terms  must  be  kept,  and  certain  ex- 
aminations must  be  passed,  before  the  pupil  can  receive 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  107 

the  certificate  or  degree  which  they  all  contemplate. 
The  fact  that  in  some  universities  single  courses  of  lec- 
tures may  be  attended  by  those  who  expect  no  certifi- 
cate or  degree,  has  caused  the  impression  to  prevail  to 
some  extent  in  this  country,  that  these  exceptions  exem- 
plify the  rule  of  university  life.  Nothing  can  be  more 
untrue.  In  the  German  universities,  which  constitute 
with  many  the  beau  ideal  of  what  the  American  colleges 
ought  to  become,  the  great  mass  of  the  students  attend 
the  lectures  which  are  necessary  in  order  to  qualify 
them  to  pass  the  examination  which  is  required  before 
they  are  admitted  to  their  life  career.  It  is  true,  a  few 
persons  are  admitted  to  the  lectures  who  do  not  look 
forward  to  an  examination,  and  who  attend  what  lec- 
tures they  please,  but  such  are  not  members  of  the  uni- 
versity, except  they  are  from  a  foreign  country.  In  the 
theory  of  university  instruction  and  administration, 
there  is  no  optioji  of  studies  ;  the  option  is  between  sev- 
eral instructors  in  the  same  department  of  knowledge, 
and  between  a  faithful  and  careless  use  of  its  opportu- 
nities ;  the  last  being  no  advantage  to  speak  of. 

Another  point  still  more  material  to  be  considered, 
and  one  that  is  almost  universally  overlooked  in  this 
country,  is,  that  in  Germany  the  gymnasium  is  the  coun- 
terpart of  the  American  college.  The  proposal  in  Amer- 
ica, that  the  colleges  should  become  universities,  is 
(equivalent  to  the  proposal  in  Germany  that  the  gym- 
nasia should  be  transformed  into  universities  ;  that  is, 
that  the  instruction  now  given  in  two  or  three  fidvanced 
classes  of  the  gymnasium  should  be  omitted  in  whole 
or  in  part,  in  order  that  the  student  might  be  admitted 
,at   once   to   professional   or  scientific  study.     Such  a 


Io8  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

proposition  in  Germany  would  be  received  with  de- 
rision. We  observe,  in  passing,  that  as  the  gymnasium 
answers  to  the  American  college,  so  the  Realschule  cor- 
respond to  the  scientific  school  with  us, — rather,  to 
the  scientific  school  as  it  was  originally  conceived  in 
this  country,  for  the  form  which  these  schools  are  now 
taking,  e.  g.^  the  Sheffield  School  and  the  Massachusetts 
Institute  of  Technology,  brings  them  somewhat  nearer 
to  the  gymnasium.  But  even  when  the  curriculum  of 
these  schools  shall  be  extended  to  four  years,  and  Latin 
shall  be  insisted  on  as  a  preliminary  study,  they  will 
scarcely  rise  higher  in  their  programme  than  do  the  real 
schools  of  Germany.  But  these  schools,  in  Germany, 
prepare  for  business  or  practical  life  only.  To  matricu- 
lation and  full  membership  in  the  university,  and  to  a 
certificate  or  degree  founded  upon  an  attendance  on  the 
lectures  in  physics,  the  old-fashioned  classical  course 
of  the  gymnasium  is  the  indispensable  prerequisite.  It 
is  so  because  the  university'  professes  to  teach  Science 
and  not  Technology,  and  to  scientific  knowledge  in  the 
eminent  sense,  an  antecedent  preparation  of  liberal  cul- 
ture is  thought  to  be  necessary.  Those  Americans  who 
plead  the  German  universities  as  models  for  our  col- 
leges, could  not,  therefore,  avail  themselves  of  a  more 
unfortunate  source  whence  to  derive  their  tirades  against 
classical  study  or  a  prescribed  curriculum.  They  have 
one  feature  only  which  can  be  thus  applied  ;  the  stu- 
dent is  not  held  to  so  strict  account  as  in  our  colleges 
for  his  attendance  upon  lectures  or  for  the  use  of  his 
time.  The  principal  motives  which  hold  him  to  his 
duty  are  the  love  of  study,  and  the  desire  for  reputa- 
tion, which  are  actively  stimulated  by  a  public   senti- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I09 

ment  such  as  is  found  in  no  other  country  ;  and  last,  not 
least,  by  the  intimate  connection  between  fidelity  in 
study  and  his  future  subsistence,  which  is  so  sensitively 
felt  in  a  country  in  which  the  avenues  to  a  decent  living 
are  choked  by  crowds  of  struggling  competitors,  and 
are  guarded  by  numerous  artificial  barriers.  But  not- 
withstanding these  stimulants  to  labor,  the  success  of 
the  German  university  system  is  not  so  remarkable  as 
to  justify  the  confident  inferences  which  are  urged  by 
its  American  encomiasts  when  they  argue  that  the 
American  college  system  can  only  be  redeemed  by  being 
modeled  after  its  practice.  The  utmost  that  Matthew 
Arnold  dares  assert  to  its  advantage,  is  the  following  : 
"  There  are,  of  course,  many  idlers  ;  the  proportion  of 
students  in  a  German  university  who  really  work,  I 
have  heard  estimated  at  one-third  ;  certainly  it  is  larger 
than  in  the  English  universities."  (p.  229.)  Mark  Pat- 
tison  asserts  of  the  students  at  Oxford,  that  seventy 
per  cent,  are  "  idle,  incorrigibly  idle."  If  these  esti- 
mates are  correct,  we  are  confident  that  defective  as 
are  the  operation  and  results  of  the  American  colleges, 
none  of  them  will  present  so  scanty  a  proportion  of 
earnest  and  successful  workers  as  do  the  English  and 
German  universities,  while  our  professional  and  ad- 
vanced schools,  which  should  more  properly  be  com- 
pared with  these,  would  make  a  much  better  showing. 
We  speak  not  of  actual  attainments,  but  only  of  the 
spirit  of  labor.  How  ruinous  and  demoralizing  it 
would  be  to  allow  to  the  students  of  the  American  col- 
leges the  freedom  and  irresponsibility  of  the  German 
university,  a  freedom  which  would  not  for  a  mo- 
ment be  thought  of  in  the  g}uiinasium,  needs  scarcely 


no  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

a   moment's    thought.     Even    if  the  grade  of  the  stu- 
dents  in  the  university  and  the  college  were  the  same, 
the  circumstances  of  the  two  countries  are  so  diverse  as 
to   exclude  all  inferences  from  the  one  to    the   other. 
The  influence  of  a  learned  class  is   with  us  compara- 
tively feeble.     The  pecuniary  prizes  offered  directly  to 
scholastic  attainment  are  far  from  being  tempting.     The 
road  is  nearly  as  direct  and   open  to   the   professions 
from  the  log-cabin  as  from  the  university  ;   to  political 
success  it  is  quite  as  free  and  as  crowded  from  the  one 
starting-point  as  it  is  from  the  other.     The  colleges  and 
schools  have  nothing  of  the  value  in  the  eye  of  the  "  pol- 
iticians" in  America,  which  the  university  has  in  the  view 
of  the  government  in  Germany,  where  all  the  patronage 
with  respect  to  the  more  important  civil  offices,  flows  in  a 
stream  exclusively  through  the  literary  institutions,  and 
is  determined  by  the  examinations  held  by  the  civil  au- 
thorities.    These,  and  manifold  other  circumstances  ex- 
plain the  energy  and  zeal  with  which  science  is  pursued 
in  the  German  gymnasia  and  the  German  universities. 
Were  their  system  very  diverse  from  our  own,  success 
with  them  would  be   no  warrant  for  success  with  us. 
But  inasmuch  as  their  system  is  substantially  the  same 
with  our  own  in  respect  to  a  prescribed  course  of  study, 
it  may  confirm  us  in  the  purpose  not  hastily  to  abandon 
a  feature  which  has  been  almost  universally  accepted, 
wherever  literary  institutions  have  been  instructed  by 
the  wisdom,  or  have  stood  the  test,  of  time. 

The  results  of  the  experiment  of  the  elective  system 
at  Harvard  College,  as  described  in  the  report  of  the 
late  acting  President  for  1868-69,  are  not  such  as  to  di- 
minish our  confidence  in  the  views  which  have  been  ex- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  Ill 

pressed.  We  give  this  part  of  the  report  in  full,  because 
of  the  importance  of  the  subject  and  the  significance 
of  the  views  it  expresses  :  "  The  elective  system  has 
been  in  operation  long  enough  to  develop  both  its  mer- 
its and  its  defects.  It  has  probably  disappointed 
equally  its  opponents  and  its  advocates.  It  has  not 
drained  the  classical  departments  of  such  pupils  as 
would  have  remained  in  them  with  honor  and  profit ; 
nor  has  it  lowered  the  standard  of  scholarship.  It  is 
believed  that  there  is  at  least  as  much  of  good  work 
done  under  the  present  as  under  the  former  regif?ie,  and 
with  more  alacrity.  It  is  a  decided  advantage  to  the 
working  of  any  department  to  be  relieved  of  those  who 
dislike  it  or  are  unfitted  for  it.  It  is  impossible  that 
teachers  should  not  do  themselves  the  more  ample  jus- 
tice when  they  have  only  capable  and  willing  pupils  ; 
and  equally  impossible  that  students  should  not  make 
greater  proficiency  in  such  branches  as  they  elect  for 
themselves  than  in  a  required  course.  So  far  as  the 
election  on  the  part  of  our  students  is  free,  deliberate; 
and  for  just  cause,  these  benefits  have  manifestly  at- 
tended their  choice.  But  a  large  portion  of  the  stu- 
dents make  their  election,  not  from  any  conscious  taste 
or  preference,  but  avowedly  from  considerations  of  ease, 
or  of  rank,  or  of  companionship.  As  the  time  for 
choice  approaches,  no  question  is  more  frequently  dis- 
cussed than  the  higher  or  lower  rate  at  which  the  sev- 
eral instructors  estimate  equally  good  lessons  ;  and  a 
department  is  not  unfrequently  chosen  because  it  is 
supposed,  that,  in  the  College  phrase,  "  the  marks  run 
higher"  there  than  in  the  collateral  departments.  The 
very  large  number  of  petitions  for  "  a  change  of  elect- 


112  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

ive"  is  the  best  evidence  of  the  insufficient  grounds  on 
which  the  choice  is  often  made.  It  must  be  admitted, 
also,  that  the  instructors  are  strongly  tempted  to  do 
whatever  is  legitimately  within  their  power  to  dissuade 
and  discourage  all  except  quick  and  capable  scholars 
from  entering  their  respective  departments  ;  and  a  stu- 
dent of  slender  ability,  but  with  a  sincere  and  discrim- 
inating love  of  learning,  may  find  the  course  which  he 
would  prefer  virtually  closed  against  him,  or  opened  to 
him  reluctantly  and  grudgingly.  The  undersigned 
would  by  no  means  recommend  a  return  to  the  old 
method.  The  elective  system  is  entitled  to  a  prolonged 
and  thorough  trial.  It  was  demanded  by  the  public 
voice ;  it  is  sustained  by  the  suffrages  of  many  of  our 
wisest  and  most  experienced  educators.  But,  in  order 
to  give  it  a  fair  and  full  trial,  it  should  be  confined  to 
those  who  wish  to  exert  the  prerogative  it  gives.  It 
should  not  be  discredited  by  the  haphazard,  miscalled 
choice,  which  on  the  first  week  of  a  term  may  crowd 
one  recitation-room  with  students  who,  the  second  week, 
will  be  pertinaciously  begging  to  be  transferred  to  an- 
other. It  is  recommended  that  the  present,  and,  when- 
ever it  shall  be  practicable,  a  still  wider,  range  of  choice 
be  open  to  all  who  desire  that  liberty  ;  but  that  there 
be  also  established  a  regular  curriculum,  not  unlike  the 
former  required  course,  which  shall  be  pursued  by  those 
who  signify  no  wish  to  do  otherwise.  This  arrange- 
ment would  restore  to  the  ancient  routine  of  liberal 
study  all  who  have  no  special  tastes  or  adaptations,  and 
would  at  the  same  time  disencumber  of  indifferent  pu- 
pils the  special  departments  that  have  been  added  to 
the  old  curriculum'^ 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  113 

The  opinions  and  recommendations  contained  in  this 
extract  which  are  founded  upon  the  actual  workings  of 
the  elective  system  should  be  distinguished  from  those 
which  are  grounded  upon  other  reasons.  The  wisdom 
of  a  regular  curriculum  for  all  those  who  do  not  desire 
an  election  is  distinctly  recognised.  At  the  same  time 
the  frivolous  and  capricious  reasons  which  excite  such 
a  desire  in  many  cases,  the  unwisdom  of  the  election 
made,  as  well  as  the  injurious  temptation  to  which  the 
instructors  are  exposed  to  recommend  to  certain  stu- 
dents total  abstinence  from  their  class-rooms,  are  all  em- 
inently suggestive.  An  optional  system  that  could  be 
rigidly  restricted  to  those  students  and  those  studies 
between  which  there  exists  an  irresistible  affinity — if  it 
were  subordinated  to  a  regular  curriculum  which  should 
be  rigidly  enforced  in  all  cases  in  which  no  such  reason 
for  election  could  be  made  to  appear,  would  be  attended 
with  few  very  serious  objections,  except  that  the  student 
himself  might  in  many  cases  be  a  serious  loser.  Under 
such  an  arrangement  the  college  would  give  the  weight 
of  its  influence  in  favor  of  what  may  properly  be  called 
the  "  well  rounded"  system  of  studies  as  the  condition 
of  manly  and  liberal  culture.  The  force  of  its  disci- 
pline, and  the  pressure  of  the  joint  working  of  every 
part  of  its  adjusted  machinery  would  all  be  brought  to 
bear  in  one  direction,  and  the  confident  impetuosity  of 
youthful  conceit  with  its  restless  desire  of  change  would 
be  quietly  regulated.  We  cannot  but  hope  it  is  in  this 
direction  and  after  this  ideal  that  the  words  of  the  san- 
guine President  of  Harvard  will  be  fulfilled,  which  an- 
nounce that  "  the  college  therefore  proposes  to  perse- 
vere in  its  efforts  to  improve  and  extend  the  elective 
system." 


114  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

The  reasons  which  introduce  the  "  therefore"  in  this 
announcement  are  not  especially  convincing,  being 
made  up  of  pleasant  and  obvious  generalities  with  a 
slight  glitter  of  specious  humor.  For  example  :  "  The 
enforced  and  uniform  curriculum  has  the  merit  of  sim- 
plicity. .  So  had  the  school  method  of  our  grandfathers, 
— one  primer,  one  catechism,  one  rod  for  all  children." 
We  beg  pardon — we  had  supposed  that  the  "  one  rod" 
was  electively  reserved  for  those  who  especially  deserved 
it — and  among  other  reasons  for  bad  logic.  Of  bad 
logic  or  a  misapplied  analogy  the  President's  next  par- 
agraph seems  to  us  an  example.  The  adherence  by  the 
Americans  to  the  uniform  curriculum  is  cited  as  an  out- 
growth of  the  tendency  of  the  Yankee  to  believe  that 
he  can  turn  his  hand  to  anything,  /.  ^.,  the  Yankee  col- 
leges have  generally  confined  their  students  to  a  fixed 
course  of  studies,  in  the  belief  that  their  genius  when 
thus  trained  would  render  them  dexterous  in  any  spe- 
cial art  without  further  preparation.  The  observation, 
"  the  vulgar  conceit  that  a  Yankee  can  turn  his  hand  to 
anything  we  insensibly  carry  into  high  places  where  it  is 
preposterous  and  criminal,"  is  better  illustrated  by  those 
directors  of  public  education  who  think  a  Yankee  stu- 
dent is  "  roundly "  developed  at  a  period  so  much 
earlier  than  he  is  in  England  or  Germany  that  it  is  safe 
to  trust  him  to  choose  his  own  specialty  some  two  or 
three  years  sooner  than  is  allowed  in  those  countries. 
"  The  young  man  of  nineteen  or  twenty  ought  to  know 
what  he  likes  best  and  is  most  fit  for,"  says  the  Yankee 
President.  On  the  contrary,  Lord  Macaulay,  a  rather 
slow  Englishman,  observes  :  "  We  believe  that  men  who 
have  been  engaged  up  to  one  or  two   and  twenty,  in 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  115 

Studies  which  have  no  immediate  connection  with  the  bus- 
iness of  any  profession,  and  of  which  the  effect  is  merely 
to  open,  to  invigorate,  and  to  strengthen  the  mind,  will 
generally  be  found,  in  the  business  of  every  profession, 
superior  to  men  who  have  at  eighteen  or  nineteen  devo- 
ted themselves  to  the  especial  studies  of  their  calling." 
This  opinion  is  expressed  in  an  elaborate  and  well  con- 
sidered report  founded  on  an  actual  observation  of  the 
results  of  a  special  education  for  the  East  India  service, 
a  service,  success  in  which  demands  technical  studies  in 
a  whole  family  of  difficult  languages,  in  a  tangled  and 
doubtful  history,  and  a  recondite  philosophy  and  theol- 
ogy. The  President  says,  very  truly,  "  if  the  previous 
training"  of  the  young  man  of  nineteen  or  twenty  "  has 
been  sufficiently  wide  he  will  know  by  that  time  whether 
he  is  most  apt  at  language,  or  philosophy,  or  natural 
science,  or  mathematics."  "^" — but  the  conclusion 
all  depends  on  the  if.  Whether  this  is  usually  the  case 
is  the  very,  and  the  only  point  in  dispute.  We  have  as 
yet  no  satisfactory  evidence  that  the  students  of  Har- 
vard College  at  the  end  of  the  Freshman  year  have  at- 
tained to  more  advancjed  acquisitions  of  knowledge  as 
well  as  to  greater  maturity  of  mind,  than  is  granted  to 
youths  in  general  at  this  stage  of  college  life.  Perhaps 
it  is  the  expectation  that  the  college  can  enforce  so 
thorough  a  classical  and  mathematical  training  upon 
applicants  for  admission  as  to  be  able  to  terminate  the 
strictly  disciplinary  course  of  required  studies  at  the  end 
of  Freshman  year.  If  this  is  so,  it  would  seem  to  be 
preferable  that  a  system  of  special  schools — say  of  Phi- 
lology, Philosophy,  History,  Literature,  etc.,  etc. — should 
be  provided,  each  with  its  fixed  curriculum.     This  would 


Il6  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

involve  a  shortening  of  the  time  allotted  to  both  liberal 
and  special  education,  and  this  would  illustrate  another 
peculiarity  sometimes  charged  upon  "  the  Yankees" — 
that  they  shorten  the  time  required  for  long  and  de- 
liberate work.  This  shortening  or  condensing  process 
must  involve  the  curtailing  of  the  Latin  and  Greek,  an 
effect  which  is  open  to  the  objection,  made  by  an  acute 
friend  of  ours,  that  it  seems  hardly  worth  while  to  com- 
mence the  study  of  either  Latin  or  Greek  if  either  or 
both  of  these  languages  are  to  be  prosecuted  no  further 
than  is  provided  at  Harvard.  It  certainly  would  illus- 
trate still  another  American  peculiarity,  the  being  con- 
tent with  a  smattering  in  studies. 

It  may  perhaps  be  the  design  at  Harvard  to  absorb 
the  Scientific  School  into  the  college,  and  after  the 
Freshman  year  to  give  to  modern  languages,  history  and 
literature,  natural  history,  etc.,  the  time  which  has 
hitherto  been  devoted  to  the  severer  occupations,  on  the 
theory  that  the  disciplinary  and  professional  studies  can 
be  advantageously  combined  in  the  college  course. 
Our  whole  argument  has  been  directed  against  such  a 
plan  and  the  reasons  which  we  have  adduced  are  not 
set  aside  by  the  remark  of  the  President,  that  all  the 
studies  open  to  the  student  "  are  liberal  and  disciplin- 
ary, not  narrow  and  special"  ;  and  again,  the  requisi- 
tions for  the  first  degree  "are  nevertheless  high  and 
inflexible,  being  nothing  less  than  four  years  devoted  to 
liberal  culture."  Doubtless  all  these  studies  are  disci- 
plinary. That  has  never  been  questioned  and  hardly 
needed  to  have  been  reaffirmed.  The  question  in  dis- 
cussion is,  not  whether  these  "  modern"  and  special 
studies  are  disciplinary  in  any  degree,  but  whether  they 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 17 

are  as  eminently  disciplinary  as  those  for  which  they 
are  substituted.  Or  is  it  desired  to  transform  the  col- 
lege into  a  continental  university  as  modified  by  the 
Yankee  device  of  admitting  young  students  to  the  elec- 
tion and  the  freedom  of  the  university,  without  that  pre- 
vious discipline  or  knowledge  which  is  requisite  for  suc- 
cess ?  Harvard  has  had  for  a  long  time  the  name  of  a 
university,  with  very  much  of  the  reality,  in  that  one  of 
its  departments  which  has  followed  the  methods  hitherto 
characteristic  of  the  college.  It  would  be  a  public 
loss  and  a  pity  if  she  should  cease  to  be  a  college,  and 
fail  to  be  any  thing  more  than  the  mere  semblance  of  a 
university.  We  venture  to  predict  that  if  the  new  sys- 
tem is  persevered  in.  Harvard  College  will  contain 
three  or  four  sets  of  students  among  its  undergradu- 
ates :  I  St.  The  devotees  of  classical  learning  or  of 
mathematical  research,  who,  in  their  "  small  and  lively 
classes"  and  with  the  aid  of  accomplished  and  earnest 
teachers,  will  prosecute  their  studies  with  excited  enthu- 
siasm and  make  brilliant  acquisitions ;  2d.  The  devo- 
tees of  some  special  branch  of  Physical  Science  who 
wdll  pursue  their  studies  either  from  the  excitement  of 
love,  or  the  interest  which  is  derived  from  their  intimate 
relation  to  future  professional  success  ;  3d.  A  higher 
class  than  either,  viz.  :  those  who  by  reason  of  early 
youthful  advantages  or  precocious  genius  have  the  ca- 
pacity and  taste  for  properly  university  studies,  a  great 
number  of  which  they  will  select  and  master ;  4th.  A 
large,  inferior,  and  heterogeneous  class,  who  will  select 
their  "  electives"  with  the  keenest  appreciation  of  what 
will  yield  a  living  standing  at  the  least  expense  of  labor 
— camp-followers  and  stragglers,  who  will  require  a  vig- 


Il8  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

orous  Provost  Marshal  to  look  after  and  to  connect  them 
in  reputable  relations  with  the  principal  battalions. 
The  connection  between  these  several  divisions  must  be 
loose  and  uninteresting,  the  sense  of  interest  in,  and  re- 
sponsibility for,  the  institution  as  a  whole  must  be 
weak  in  the  instructors,  the  common  life  of  the  college 
must  be  relaxed  and  feeble  in  its  tone,  and  the  degree 
with  which  all  the  members  of  these  ill  assorted  classes 
are  to  be  honored  at  the  close  must  signify  a  frightful 
inequality  of  opportunities  enjoyed,  if  not  of  acquisitions 
actually  made.  That  Harvard  College  will  continue  to 
be  an  institution  of  great  activity  and  acquisition  in  all 
departments  of  learning  and  culture,  cannot  be  doubted  ; 
but  that  Harvard  College  will  be  as  useful  to  the  public 
and  to  many  of  its  students,  as  it  would  be  if  its  awak- 
ening enterprise  and  its  great  resources  had  been  admin- 
istered on  a  different  theory,  we  may  be  excused  from 
believing,  without  abating  in  the  least  our  sympathy 
with  the  enterprise  or  our  personal  respect  for  the  hon- 
est intentions  and  public  spirit  of  its  guardians — least 
of  all,  without  diminishing  our  estimate  of  the  learning 
and  g^enius  of  its  eminent  instructors. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    FUiJLIC.  LI9 


IV. 

TEXT  BOOKS  AND  LECTURES. 

Another  marked  peculiarity  of  the  American  colleges 
is  the  frequent  examinations  of  the  students,  or  the  reci- 
tatmis,  as  they  are  called.  This  feature  is  almost  un- 
known in  the  English  universities  ;  the  examinations 
occurring  occasionally  in  the  colleges  for  standing  and 
prizes,  say  two  or  three  times  a  3^ear,  and  more  rarely 
in  the  university — at  "  the  Senate  House"  or  in  "  the 
Schools" — for  university  degrees  and  for  the  great  re- 
wards that  bring  fellowships  and  livings.  In  the  German 
gymnasia  it  is  rigidly  maintained,  modified,  indeed,  by 
the  German  methods  of  giving  instruction.  In  the  Ger- 
man universities  frequent  examinations  are  altogether 
unknown.  After  the  student  has  passed  through  the 
final  examination  in  the  gymnasium,  which  answers  to 
our  Bachelor's  degree,  he  is  free  of  all  intermeddling 
except  the  stern  arbitrament  which  awaits  him  from  the 
government  officials  who  give  him  his  passport  to  place 
and  position  in  life,  or  the  more  trying  one  from  the 
Senatus  Academicus  which  shall  promote  him  to  a  Doc- 
tor's hat.  In  the  Scotch  universities  the  examinations 
are  more  or  less  frequent,  according  to  the  subject  mat- 
ter, but  the  instruction  is  given  in  large  measure  by 
lectures  and  the  final  examinations  are  conducted  by 
the  representatives  of  the  professions,  for  the  license  to 


7  20  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

practice  in  the  guild  or  the  church.  In  the  Queen's 
Colleges  and  the  London  University  there  are  examina- 
tions for  degrees  and  honors,  and  more  or  less  frequent 
examinations  to  ascertain  the  proficiency  and  to  stimu- 
late the  activity  of  the  student.  The  German  gymna- 
sium and  the  American  college  insist  on  these  very 
frequent  daily  examinations  or  recitations.  Instruction 
is  not  excluded  from  these  exercises.  It  is  imparted 
more  or  less  freely  according  to  the  knowledge  and 
skill  of  the  instructor  and  the  receptivity  of  his  pupils, 
but  the  prominent  feature  is  the  examination  of  the 
student's  private  work  for  the  purpose  of  holding  him 
to  his  daily  duties  by  a  constant  and  even  pressure  of 
responsibility,  and  of  noticing  and  measuring  his  at- 
tainments under  the  watchful  eye  of  his  tutor  and 
the  not  uninterested  inspection  of  his  fellows.  For  the 
sake  of  making  this  responsibility  more  effective  and 
just,  the  practice  has  been  introduced  into  many  col- 
leges of  recording  the  work  of  every  recitation  by  a 
mark  according  to  a  numerical  scale.  These  daily  ex- 
aminations are,  in  most  of  the  colleges,  supplemented 
by  examinations  at  the  end  of  every  term  and  of  every 
year,  and  in  some  by  a  final  examination  upon  the 
whole  of  the  course,  for  the  Bachelor's  degree.  In 
many  the  examinations  at  the  end  of  one  or  of  two 
years  serve,  so  far,  as  the  final  trial  for  the  degree. 

In  connection  with  these  recitations  from  a  text-book, 
lectures  are  given  in  greater  or  less  number — /.  e.  oral 
expositions  and  enforcements  of  facts  or  truths — with 
experiments  in  the  case  of  the  physical  sciences,  and 
other  illustrations  in  history,  literature,  and  philosophy. 
Upon  these  lectures  examinations  are  usually  held.     In 


AND   THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  12  1 

a  few  of  the  colleges,  instruction  is  given  very  largely 
by  lectures,  and  great  reliance  is  placed  upon  the  exam- 
inations held  upon  the  lectures  heard,  in  comparison 
with  recitations  from  text-books.  In  others,  text-books 
are  made  the  chief  instruments  or  occasions  of  oral  in- 
struction. The  methods  of  conducting  these  recitations 
vary  very  greatly  in  different  institutions,  according  to 
the  traditions  of  the  college,  the  number  of  the  stu- 
dents, the  knowledge  and  skill,  the  fidelity  and  affable- 
ness  of  the  instructors. 

It  is,  of  course,  implied,  and  ought  here  to  be  no- 
ticed, that  attendance  upon  these  recitations  and  lec- 
tures is  required,  and  that  in  some  colleges  the  custom 
has  been  introduced  of  also  exacting  that  the  lesson 
should  be  recited  privately  in  every  case  in  which  an 
absence  has  been  excused,  certain  exceptions  being  al- 
lowed for  long  illness,  and  other  reasons  ;  if  the  ab- 
sence is  not  excused  or  the  lesson  is  not  recited,  the 
student  suffers  in  his  standing. 

We  have  named  all  these  features  together,  because 
they  are  features  of  a  common  system  and  because  every 
one  of  them  has  been  of  late  much  discussed.  They 
do  not  necessarily  go  together,  but  they  are  all  special  ap- 
plications of  a  common  principle  of  college  administra- 
tion, viz.,  the  principle  of  frequent  and  enforced  exam- 
inations. The  principle  itself  we  are  prepared  to 
defend  as  essential  to  the  successful  administration  of 
the  American  college,  and  indeed  to  all  thorough  edu- 
cation in  such  a  country  as  ours.  The  special  modes 
of  applying  and  enforcing  it  are  all  the  fruits  of  experi- 
ence, and  are  not  only  capable  of  being  vindicated  as 
defensible,  but  may  be  recommended  as  important  im- 

6 


122  THK  ai\ii;rtcan  colleges 

provemt'.its.  We  will  consider  these  features  in  order. 
We  notice,  first  of  all,  the  relative  advantages  and 
disadvantages  of  giving  instruction  by  text-books  and  lec- 
tures. This  point  has  been  very  earnestly  discussed  in 
this  country.  Not  a  few  contend  that  the  only  method 
of  instruction  which  is  becoming  the  dignity  of  a 
scholar,  is  instruction  by  lectures.  For  an  eminent 
philologist  or  scientist  to  do  anything  but  give  prelec- 
tions upon  his  science,  is  represented  as  a  profound 
degradation.  It  is  held  by  many  that  the  college,  if  it 
aims  to  be  a  university,  should  furnish  instruction  in  no 
other  form,  and  leave  the  students  to  be  attracted  and 
held  to  the  lecture-room  by  the  ability,  reputation,  or 
eloquence  of  the  professor  ;  subject  only  to  occasional 
examinations  upon  the  knowledge  which  they  have  ac- 
quired, and  their  fitness  to  enter  into  certain  employ- 
ments. These  views  have  been  propounded  in  this 
country  for  the  past  thirty  years  with  great  earnestness 
and  zeal.  Scarcely  a  day  elapses  in  which  some  writer 
in  a  newspaper  or  journal  does  not  take  up  and  repeat 
the  refrain.  Inasmuch  as  lectures  upon  certain  branches 
of  physics  seem  to  be  required  in  order  to  exhibit  ex- 
periments by  apparatus,  the  professors  of  these  branches 
and  their  friends  are  foremost  in  insisting  that  oral  ex- 
position by  lecture  is  the  only  method  of  teaching  which 
ought  to  be  required  by  the  institution  or  submitted  to 
by  the  professor.  In  some  institutions  in  this  country, 
particularly  in  the  University  of  Virginia,  it  is  used 
very  generally  in  all  departments  of  knowledge.  This 
is  the  only  method  practiced  in  the  German  universities 
with  some  very  limited  exceptions.  In  the  great  Eng- 
lish  universities   it   is  used  but  little,  and  meets  wuth 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I23 

scanty  favor.  In  the  Scotch  universities  it  is  largely 
used,  as  it  is  also  in  the  Queen's  Colleges,  and  we  be- 
lieve in  the  colleges  of  the  London  University. 

Instruction  by  lectures  is  the  most  attractive  to  the 
teacher,  especially  if  he  consults  his  private  ease,  com- 
fort, and  reputation  more  than  he  considers  his  useful- 
ness or  effectiveness  as  a  teacher,  or  the  best  interests 
of  the  institution  which  he  serves.  This  is  especially 
true  if  the  professor  is  required  to  give  one  or  two 
courses  of  some  thirty  or  fifty  hours  a  year,  and  if  with 
the  preparation  and  delivery  of  these  lectures  his  re- 
sponsibility begins  and  ends.  Even  when  he  lectures 
an  hour  every  day,  or  even  more  frequently,  it  is  an  im- 
mense relief  to  know  that  he  has  no  concern  with  the 
progress  and  fidelity  of  the  students,  except  to  give 
them  sound  and  methodical  teaching.  Lecturing  is  es- 
pecially attractive  when  a  man  can  be  appointed  to  a 
special  lectureship  in  one  or  more  universities,  and  re- 
ceive a  handsome  stipend  for  reading  ten  or  twenty  pre- 
lections upon  a  subject  to  which  he  is  supposed  to  have 
given  special  attention.  A  Professorship  limited  to  such 
duties  is,  moreover,  a  very  convenient  endowment  for 
the  devotee  of  any  special  department  of  knowledge  ; 
giving  him  position  in  connection  with  an  influential 
and  learned  community,  a  limited  excitement  in  the  ob- 
ligation to  deliver  a  few  lectures  yearly,  which  may  sus- 
tain his  reputation  and  make  public  his  discoveries,  and 
leisure  for  private  studies,  for  the  enlargement  of  sci- 
ence, and  the  honor  of  the  university.  But  however 
attractive  this  method  of  instruction  may  be,  in  its  re- 
lations to  the  dignity,  the  ease,  the  irresponsibility,  or 
the  pocket  of  the  instructor,  or  even  to  the  enlargement 


7-24  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

and  defense  of  science,  it  is  not  the  most  profitable  to 
the  pupil,  unless  he  is  far  advanced  in  knowledge  and 
is  animated  with  an  ardent  zeal  for  learning.  Even 
then  it  has  only  a  limited  usefulness  and  should  never 
be  exclusively  employed.  Its  advantages,  when  used 
within  proper  limits,  are  the  following :  The  instruction 
is  given  from  a  living  man,  with  the  interest  and  excite- 
ment which  personal  presence  and  oral  communication 
possess  above  the  written  page.  The  accessories  of  an 
audience,  composed  of  others  intent  upon  the  same 
themes,  and  moved  by  the  same  activities  of  thought 
and  feeling,  are  not  inconsiderable.  The  methodizing 
agency  of  an  able  thinker  in  recasting  and  representing 
acknowledged  principles  and  received  facts  in  such  re- 
lations as  are  peculiar  to  himself,  with  especial  refer- 
ence to  the  known  wants  of  his  hearers,  to  current  ob- 
jections, to  prevailing  controversies,  and  to  popular 
literature  or  passing  events,  whether  public  or  private, 
is  of  the  greatest  importance.  The  Professor  has  been 
constituted  and  accepted  by  his  class  as  their  teacher, 
and  communications  from  him  are  received  with  a  def- 
erence and  trust  which  are  accorded  to  no  other  person. 
It  is  often  difficult,  sometimes  it  is  impossible,  for  him 
to  find  a  manual  or  text-book  which  accords  with  his 
opinions  or  method.  For  this  reason,  even  if  he  uses 
a  text-book,  he  must  lecture  more  or  less,  in  order  to 
supply  its  deficiencies  or  rearrange  its  method.  Even 
when  he  relies  chiefly  upon  a  text-book  and  recitations, 
lectures  may  be  required  to  present  matter  which  can 
only  be  gathered  from  many  authorities,  which  the  stu- 
dent is  incapable  of  looking  up  and  arranging  for  him- 
self, but  which,  when  presented  in  connection  with  the 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 25 

author  recited,  invests  the  study  of  the  subject  with  a 
heightened  interest,  and  impresses  its  truths  more  firmly 
upon  the  memory.  A  brief  course  of  lectures  is  often 
of  the  greatest  importance  as  a  means  of  gathering  to- 
gether what  has  been  read  or  studied,  of  restating  it  in 
a  compact  and  intelligible  method,  and  impressing  it 
more  firmly  upon  the  memory.  Lectures,  also,  help  to 
reveal  the  individual  peculiarities  of  the  Professor's  in- 
tellect and  heart  more  fully,  and  in  more  particulars, 
than  his  occasional  comments  upon  the  authors  which 
are  recited,  because  the  discussions  can  be  more  com- 
plete and  exhaustive.  They  are  of  special  importance 
in  case  the  teacher  has  made  important  discoveries,  or 
seized  upon  important  truths,  or  invented  a  new  method, 
or  completed  a  peculiar  system.  The  necessity  and 
usefulness  of  lectures  for  these  and  other  ends,  will, 
however,  vary  ver}^  considerably  with  different  studies 
and  departments.  Instruction  in  the  Mathematics  and 
in  the  Classics,  with  the  exception  of  special  topics  of 
History  and  Antiquities,  can  be  most  advantageously 
given  in  connection  with  a  text-book  upon  which  the 
Professor  comments  and  the  pupil  is  examined. 

The  objections  to  an  exclusive  reliance  upon  lectures 
for  instruction  in  any  department  of  college  teaching 
are  manifold.  The  pupil  receives  by  the  ear  and  not 
by  the  eye.  The  eye  can  re-peruse  %vhat  it  sees  and 
can  reflect  upon  its  import.  The  ear  must  hear  it  a 
second  time,  either  as  repeated,  or  as  given  in  varied 
phraseology,  and  made  obvious  and  palpable  by  copious 
illustrations.  Hence  the  lecturer  must  necessarily  be 
slow  and  tedious,  or  diffuse,  repetitious,  or  superficial. 
Hence  if  a  pupil  relies  upon  a  lecturer  for  all  the  knowl- 


126-  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

edge  which  he  acquires,  his  acquisitions  will  be  scanty  and 
imperfectly  grounded,  even  if  he  employs  his  own  think- 
ing in  revising  and  recasting  what  he  has  heard.  A  re- 
membered lecture  is  vastly  inferior  to  a  thoroughly 
mastered  book,  because  the  book  will  ordinarily  be 
more  condensed  and  scientific  than  the  lecture,  or,  if 
not,  more  of  it  will  be  retained  and  placed  methodically 
at  the  service  of  the  learner.  The  reason  why  lectures 
are  especially  adapted  to  students  who  have  read  and 
mastered  many  books,  is  that  the  teacher  in  such  cases 
m.ay  revise  and  recast  the  knowledge  which  they  have 
acquired,  or,  if  it  need  be,  supply  what  is  wanting  or  con- 
fute what  is  erroneous,  and  have  an  audience  intelligent 
and  appreciative  by  reason  of  their  previously  acquired 
knowledge. 

Not  only  can  the  pupil  gain  less  positive  knowledr;e 
and  fewer  thoughts  from  a  lecture  than  from  an  hour's 
reading,  and  for  this  reason  receive  less  advantage,  but 
he  will  acquire  this  knowledge  in  a  manner  which  will 
less  vigorously  exercise  and  discipline  his  powers. 
The  fact  that  acquisition  by  the  lecture  is  the  most 
pleasant,  may  indicate  that  the  attitude  of  the  pupil  is 
passive  and  receptive  rather  than  active  and  recreative. 
The  stimulus  and  aid  furnished  by  the  presence  and 
voice  of  the  teacher  may  be  at  the  expense  of  the 
self-exciting  and  self-controlled  activity  of  the  learner. 
Attendance  upon  lectures  is  exhaustive  of  the  body 
and  the  mind,  and  it  is  especially  injurious  to  both  the 
taste  and  the  power  for  close  and  effective  private  study. 
If  the  chief  reliance  is  placed  upon  lectures,  five  or  six 
hours  of  close  attention  will  constitute  sufficient  labor 
for  the  day,  and  the  remainder  of  the  time  of  the  pupil 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PIjBLIC.  12  7 

must  be  given  to  studying  his  notes  for  retention  or  ex- 
amination. The  consequence  will  be  that  ver}-  little 
reading  will  be  accomplished  and  the  student  will  be- 
come the  passive  recipient  of  the  doctrines  and  opin- 
ions of  his  teachers,  and  hence,  even  under  the  ablest 
and  most  various  instruction,  narrow  in  his  range  of 
knowledge  and  of  thought,  if  not  the  passionate  and 
bigoted  adherent  of  a  single  school,  with  few  resources 
and  a  feebler  inclination  to  correct  his  defects. 

For  the  more  advanced  students  of  a  college,  and 
even  for  the  students  of  professional  schools,  instruc- 
tion by  lecturing  should  be  sparingly  applied.  It 
should  never  supersede  the  independent  reading  of  the 
student  nor  the  task-work  of  individual  acquisition  and 
thought.  For  pupils  who  are  less  advanced  it  should 
be  employed  very  rarely,  and  only  for  the  purposes  of 
rousing  the  attention,  stimulating  the  zeal,  and  gather- 
ing into  brief  and  comprehensive  statements  the  most 
general  views  of  the  topic  or  author  which  is  studied. 
The  chief  occupation  of  such  students  should  be  to 
commit  to  memory,  and  to  master  by  thought,  the  words 
and  principles  which  the  text-books  present  for  study. 
The  use  of  a  text-book  is,  however,  in  no  sense  degrad- 
ing to  the  instructor,  nor  does  it  preclude  him  from 
giving  instruction  in  the  amplest  variety  and  the  most 
effective  manner.  The  teacher  is  not  necessarily  de- 
graded to  the  position  of  a  mere  examiner  of  his  pu- 
pils' work  or  a  hearer  of  recitations.  On  the  contrary, 
he  enjoys  special  advantages  for  the  most  effective 
teaching,  viz.,  teaching  by  the  Socratic  method.  The 
defects  of  his  author  in  statement  or  in  method  may 
even  be  the  convenient  occasion  and  foil  to  set  off  his 


128'  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

own  better  phrased  definitions  or  his  neater  methods. 
The  felicitous  or  defective  performance  of  his  pupil  may 
excite  the  instructor  to  draw  forth  the  vindication  or  the 
correction  of  his  work  by  well  adapted  questionings. 
Instruction  given  in  this  way  is  more  concrete  and 
lively  than  the  more  general  and  abstract  expositions 
of  the  lecture-room.  To  comment  upon  an  author  may 
task  the  powers  and  display  the  genius  of  the  most 
gifted  teacher  as  effectively  and  variously  as  to  utter 
his  own  lucubrations.  Indeed  the  brief  foot-notes  of  a 
learned  commentator  upon  a  printed  text  are  often  as 
valuable  as  the  learned  dissertations  which  he  reserves 
for  the  appendix.  Instruction  by  this  method  has  also 
the  very  great  advantage  of  bringing  the  teacher  into  a 
close  and  individual  contact  with  his  pupil,  of  giving 
him  a  personal  knowledge  of  his  powers  and  his  de- 
fects, and  sometimes  of  awakening  an  humane  and 
friendly  interest  in  his  progress.  The  familiar  ques- 
tionings of  the  class-room  jDpen  and  invite  the  way  to 
profitable  intercourse  and  acquaintance  in  private. 
They  tend  to  bring  both  pupil  and  teacher  into  the  re- 
lations of  confidence  and  friendship,  and  thus  to  make 
real  the  ideal  of  friendly  guidance  on  the  one  hand  and 
of  grateful  docility  on  the  other. 

We  dwell  upon  this  point  at  greater  length,  for  the 
reason  that  the  opinion  has  extensively  prevailed  in  this 
country,  and  is  countenanced  by  manifold  influences, 
that  the  American  colleges  can  never  rise  to  their 
proper  position  until  they  are  manned  by  a  large  num- 
ber of  eminent  professors,  to  each  of  whom  shall  be 
assigned  a  lecture-room  for  instruction,  and  whose  sole 
function  shall  be  to  read  or  expound  the  results  of  his 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    TUBLIC/  I29 

individual  researches.  If  examinations  are  to  be  en- 
forced, it  is  held  that  even  these  should  be  conducted 
by  assistants  or  tutors,  but  from  all  duties  of  this  sort 
which  involve  a  close  personal  knowledge  of  and  inter- 
est in  the  progress  of  the  individual  pupil  the  professor 
should  seek  to  be  excused,  as  inconsistent  with  his  posi- 
tion and  interfering  with  his  private  studies.  No  heresy 
seems  to  us  more  dangerous  than  this.  No  disaster 
could  be  more  serious  than  for  college  instructors  or 
college  guardians  to  cherish  such  ideals  as  this  of  what 
is  desirable  for  the  college  or  attainable  by  a  professor. 
All  tendencies  in  this  direction  should  be  discouraged 
as  injurious  to  the  welfare  of  these  most  important  in- 
stitutions by  weakening  their  efficiency,  and  as  incon- 
sistent with  efficient  teaching  by  the  instructor  and 
thorough  acquisition  by  the  student. 

If  a  man  desires  to  be  a  professor  in  an  American 
college  he  desires  a  good  work,  but  he  ought  to  have 
just  conceptions  of  the  nature  of  the  work  which  he  de- 
sires. His  official  business  is  to  educate  the  young,  /.  e.^ 
it  is  to  teach  and  to  train.  This  is  the  work  for  which 
the  college  exists,  and  for  carrying  forward  which  all  its 
instructors,  the  professor  included,  are  appointed.  It  is 
true,  that  in  order  to  teach  he  must  know,  and  in  order 
to  make  progress  in  knowledge,  must  continue  to  study 
and  learn.  In  order  to  continue  to  learn  he  must  also 
have  leisure  and  opportunities.  For  these  reasons  he 
should  not  be  overworked  in  teaching  ;  he  should  not 
be  employed  so  many  hours  in  instruction  as  to  be  un- 
able to  study  with  freshness  and  success,  nor,  we  may 
add,  should  he  be  so  distracted  with  cares  by  reason  of 
insufficient  pay,  nor  so  worn  with  other  labors  required 


130  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

by  the  necessity  of  earning  his  living,  as  to  have  little 
strength  either  for  study  or  instruction.  But  it  should 
never  be  forgotten  that  his  post  is  one  of  duty  to  his 
pupils  as  an  instructor.  The  American  college  is  not 
designed  primarily  to  promote  the  cause  of  science  by 
endowing  posts  in  which  men  of  learning  and  science 
may  prosecute  their  researches,  but  to  secure  successful 
instruction  for  our  youth.  In  achieving  the  last  object, 
it  incidentally  promotes  the  first,  and  cannot  do  other- 
wise, but  its  aims  should  be  primarily  and  distinctly  di- 
rected to  effective  instruction  as  the  chief  end  of  its  ex- 
istence. It  may  be  desirable,  under  certain  circum- 
stances, to  connect  with  a  college  special  lectureships 
to  be  occupied  by  distinguished  scholars  whose  duties 
should  be  limited.  We  will  not  discuss  this  question 
here,  but  would  only  remark  in  passing  that,  whatever 
the  functions  of  such  lecturers  may  be,  they  are  very 
subordinate  and  inconsiderable,  compared  with  those 
of  the  instructors  who  have  the  charge  of  classes  as 
their  regular  employment  and  devote  themselves  to  the 
business  of  education  as  their  principal  occupation. 

We  return  to  our  Subject.  We  assert  that  it  is  not 
only  undesirable  that  our  colleges  should  very  largely 
give  instruction  by  lectures,  but  that,  on  the  other  hand, 
our  more  advanced  schools  of  knowledge,  both  profes- 
sional and  general,  would  gain  in  thoroughness  and  effi- 
ciency if  they  combined  with  lecturing  thorough  courses 
of  reading.  Nothing  is  more  unsatisfactory  in  the  judg- 
ment of  one  who  sees  beneath  the  surface,  than  the 
superficial  habits  and  the  narrow  culture  which  are  con- 
tracted by  the  students  of  those  professional  schools  in 
which  the  instruction  is  given  chiefly  by  lectures.     We 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  131 

observe  hopeful  tendencies  in  these  schools  toward  re- 
form in  this  very  particular,  notwithstanding  the  prev- 
alence of  the  notion  in  our  speech-making  and  speech- 
admiring  country  that  the  millennium  of  colleges  will 
never  come  till  they  are  advanced  to  universities,  and 
that  to  the  conception  of  a  university  the  essential 
elements  are  a  library,  museums,  a  suite  of  lecture- 
rooms  wdth  a  professor  in  every  chair,and  classes  of 
persons  with  pens  and  paper,  who  pay  their  fees  with 
regularity  and  promptness  ! 

But  here  we  shall  be  met  with  the  familiar  inquiries 
and  objections,  how  is  it  with  the  German  Universities? 
Is  not  their  practice  directly  opposed  to  your  theory  ? 
Is  not  the  instruction  in  these  universities  given  almost 
exclusively  by  lectures  ?  Where  in  all  the  world  is  in- 
struction more  valuable  or  received  by  a  larger  number 
of  appreciative  and  zealous  hearers  ?  To  this  we  reply, 
the  German  Universities,  as  has  already  been  said,  pre- 
suppose the  Gymnasia.  In  the  education  which  they 
give,  both  as  to  matter  and  form,  they  adapt  themselves 
to  students  who  have  been  trained,  in  these  lower  in- 
stitutions, to  the  power  to  understand,  to  assimilate  and 
delight  in,  the  lectures  which  the  university  gives. 
Take  away  the  gymnasia  and  the  hearers  who  have 
been  trained  by  their  peculiar  method,  and  the  univer- 
sity lecturers  would  either  become  unintelligible  or  else 
unprofitable  by  reason  of  the  incapacity  or  inadequate 
culture  of  their  hearers.  The  hearers  of  the  university 
lectures  are  also  stimulated  to  attention  and  zeal  by 
manifold  influences  which  either  do  not  exist,  or  act  but 
feebly  in  this  country.  Nor  is  it  true,  as  is  often  repre- 
sented, that  the  majority  of  the   hearers  of  these  lee- 


132  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

tures  ■  are  either  enthusiastic  or  eminently  successful 
devotees  of  knowledge.  The  enthusiasm  of  a.  few, 
upon  subjects  which  excite  in  this  country  the  ardor 
of  only  here  and  there  a  solitary  devotee,  is  indeed 
most  noticeable,  but  this  is  not  in  the  least  to  be  as- 
cribed  to  the  fact  that  the  instruction  is  given  by  lec- 
tures. This  enthusiasm  is  more  frequent  and  more  fer- 
vent, as  not  a  few  attendants  upon  the  universities  have 
had  occasion  to  notice,  at  those  exercises  in  which  the 
instruction  is  given  more  nearly  after  the  English  and 
American  methods.  A  large  number  of  the  students 
are  negligent  and  idle,  though  they  have  been  trained 
by  the  rigid  and  persistent  discipline  of  the  gymnasia, 
and  though  they  are  stimulated  to  effort  by  the  mani- 
fold excitements  of  German  society, — a  larger  number 
than  in  the  American  colleges ;  notwithstanding  the 
prevalent  impression  in  this  country  to  the  contrary. 
Last  of  all,  the  judgment  of  many  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent professors  and  educators  in  Germany  itself  is  in 
favor  of  modifying  the  lecture  system  by  introducing  in- 
struction by  recitations  to  a  large  extent.  The  only  in- 
superable obstacle  which  these  opinions  encounter  is 
the  indolence  and  indisposition  of  the  professors  them- 
selves, who  greatly  prefer  a  system  which  relieves  them 
of  the  drudgery  and  petty  details  which  the  other  method 
seems  to  involve. 

The  authority  of  the  example  of  the  great  English 
universities  is  decidedly  against  instruction  by  lectures. 
The  few  lecturers  who  are  provided  are  little  esteemed 
and  scantily  attended  on.  Now  and  then  a  brilliant 
and  able  professor  attracts  a  few  scores  of  admiring  list- 
eners, but  the  educating  influence  of  his  instructions 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I33 

is  very  inconsiderable.  Of  late  a  reforming  party  has 
sprung  up  within  and  without  the  universities,  who  ar- 
gue from  the  eminent  scholarship  and  the  scientific  zeal 
which  prevails  in  the  German  universities,  that  if  a  sys- 
tem similar  to  theirs  were  introduced  in  England  it 
would  be  followed  by  similar  zeal  and  proficiency.  In 
these  judgments  they  overlook  or  underestimate  the 
very  admirable  results  which  the  English  method,  ob- 
jectionable and  deficient  as  it  is  in  the  particulars  com- 
plained of,  has  effected  in  the  manhood  and  power  of 
the  multitudes  of  its  reading  men.  They  also  entirely 
leave  out  of  view  the  difference  in  the  structure  of  Eng- 
lish and  German  society  and  in  the  motives  which  in 
the  two  countries  stimulate  to  intellectual  activity,  as 
well  as  determine  the  directions  in  which  this  activity 
shall  be  employed. 


134  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


V. 

THE  ENFORCEMENT  OF  FIDELITY. 

Leaving  the  question  between  lectures  and  recitations, 
we  proceed  to  another  point :  the  frequency  of  the  reci- 
tations and  the  manner  in  which  fidelity  should  be  en- 
forced. Should  these  exercises  be  frequent  or  only  oc- 
casional ?  Should  the  acquisitions  and  diligence  of  the 
pupil  be  estimated  daily,  or  oftener  ;  or  should  this  be 
done  only  at  what  are  technically  called  examinations, 
at  longer  or  shorter  intervals  ?  We  call  the  attention 
of  our  readers  to  the  fact  that  examinations  are  required 
under  almost  every  S3^stem  and  in  institutions  of  all 
kinds,  in  the  English  and  German  universities,  the 
American  colleges,  and  in  most  professional  and  sci- 
entific schools.  The  only  difference  of  opinion  con- 
cerns the  question  whether  these  examinations  shall  be 
held  rarely  and  for  the  single  purpose  of  testing  the  per- 
manent acquisitions  of  the  student,  or  whether  in  addi- 
tion to  such  examinations,  others  shall  be  held,  and  very 
frequently,  for  the  joint  purpose  of  giving  instruction  and 
of  testing  the  student's  diligence  and  progress.  It  should 
also  be  noticed  that,  in  all  institutions,  marks  or  their 
equivalents  are  employed  at  what  are  technically  called 
examinations,  and  that  the  only  difference  of  opinion 
relates  to  the  question  whether  they  shall  be  also  em- 
ployed in  what  are  technically  called  recitations.     In 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 35 

the  English  universities  the  private  tutor,  or  coach^ 
hears  the  pupil  recite  his  classics  and  his  mathematics, 
but  he  does  this  simply  to  prepare  him  for  his  exami- 
nation, whether  this  be  a  class  or  a  pass  examination. 
He  hears  him  recite  while  he  works  with  him — oftener 
while  he  works  at  him — for  the  purpose  of  correcting 
his  errors,  of  inculcating  what  he  needs  to  notice  and 
remember,  and  above  all,  that  he  may  quicken  and 
strengthen  his  capacity  to  retain  and  recall  what  he 
learns.  In  the  great  schools  of  England  the  practice 
of  daily  recitations  is  as  abundantly  insisted  on  as  it  is 
in  the  American  schools  and  colleges  ;  the  manner  of 
conducting  them  being  determined  by  the  kind  of  wofk 
which  the  pupil  is  required  to  furnish.  In  the  German 
g^-mnasia  the  pupils  perform  more  of  their  studying  in 
the  presence  and  by  the  aid  of  the  teacher  than  with  us. 
Dictations  are  abundant,  which  the  pupil  records  as 
they  fall  from  the  lips  of  the  instructor.  Passages  in 
the  classics  are  read  and  commented  on  by  the  teacher  ; 
the  principles  and  examples  in  mathematics  are  ex- 
pounded and  explained  before  the  classes.  The  five 
hours  of  attendance  are  indeed  more  conspicuously 
hours  of  instruction  and  of  acquisition,  of  joint  and  ex- 
cited labor  on  the  part  of  instructor  and  pupil,  than 
they  are  in  the  English  public  schools  and  in  the  Amer- 
ican colleges.  But  the  pupil  also  recites,  and  his  task 
ordinarily  is  not  complete  without  a  great  deal  of  work 
out  of  school,  the  results  of  which  he  brings  up  for 
the  satisfaction  of  the  teacher.  Whatever  is  set  as  a 
task  or  has  been  communicated  in  the  class-room  is 
reproduced  by  the  scholar  and  may  be  called  for  at  any 
time. 


136  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

In  the  American  colleges  the  practice  has  till  recently 
been  uniform.  Very  frequent  recitations  have  been  re- 
quired and  the  performance  of  the  student  at  every  one 
of  these  exercises  has  been  estimated  in  determining 
his  scholarship,  whether  or  not  an  entry  was  made  by 
marks.  Formerly  the  examinations  were  more  hurried 
and  superficial  than  they  should  have  been.  They  were 
usually  viva  voce;  written  answers  from  a  series  of  ques- 
tions being  comparatively  unknown.  Of  late,  marks 
have  been  introduced  at  the  daily  as  well  as  at  the  oc- 
casional examinations,  and  the  occasional  examinations 
have  been  far  more  formal  and  thorough.  Indeed  in 
re«pect  of  form  and  thoroughness,  though  not  in  re- 
spect of  quality  or  quantity  of  matter,  these  occasional 
examinations,  both  written  and  viva  voce,  in  the  best  col- 
leges, will  compare  very  favorably  with  those  of  such  in- 
stitutions as  make  occasional  examinations  the  only 
tests  of  scholarships  and  the  only  grounds  for  honors. 
Moreover,  till  of  late  the'  minute  attention  and  the 
constant  pressure  applied  in  the  regular  recitations,  in 
the  form  of  marks  or  otherwise,  have  been  intensified 
in  the  same  degree  with  the  increased  breadth  and 
pressure  employed  in  the  occasional  examinations. 

Some  tendencies  to  change  have,  however,  of  late 
been  manifest.  In  one  college  a  great  excitement  was 
recently  occasioned  by  the  application  of  marks  to  reci- 
tations evaded  by  unexcused  absence.  In  connection 
with  this  the  custom  of  using  marks  at  all  has  been 
complained  of  as  degrading  to  the  manly  spirit  of  the 
pupils,  and  this  complaint  has  been  reechoed  in  not  a 
few  of  the  public  journals.  The  proposal  has,  in  some 
quarters,  almost   assumed  the   form  of  a  demand  that 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I37 

marking  should  be  abandoned  as  savoring  too  much  of 
the  discipHne  which  is  fitted  for  school-boys,  and  as 
therefore  unsuited  to  young  men  at  college.  Other  ob- 
jections have  been  urged,  as  that  it  tends  to  foster  the 
spirit  of  servile  and  superficial  study,  and  that  it  pro- 
motes cramming  for  the  recitation  immediately  impend- 
ing, as  well  as  brings  constantly  before  the  student  an 
immediate  gain  or  loss,  one  of  which  he  will  snatch  at 
and  the  other  he  will  evade  by  stealthy  and  superficial 
practices,  to  the  damage  of  his  intellectual  and  personal 
integrity.  It  is  objected,  moreover,  that  the  attention 
of  the  instructor  is  divided  and  distracted  between  the 
work  of  instruction  and  of  adjusting  the  measure  of  the 
attainments  of  his  pupils.  For  these  and  other  reasons 
it  has  been  proposed  to  abandon  marking  at  recitations 
and  even  marking  for  attendance,  and  to  hold  somewhat 
frequent  examinations,  say  whenever  an  author  has  been 
read,  or  any  special  topic  in  science  or  literature  has 
been  finished,  which  examinations  shall  be  the  sole 
ground  of  determining  the  attamments  of  the  pupil  and 
his  claims  to  honors.  In  favor  of  this  arrangement  it 
is  asserted  that  the  student  will  study  his  author  and 
his  subject  more  thoroughly,  because  he  will  study  not 
in  parts,  but  as  a  whole, — that,  being  thrown  somewhat 
more  on  his  own  responsibility,  he  will  study  with  more 
manly  purposes  and  a  more  direct  regard  to  his  own 
self-improvement.  It  is  claimed,  as  a  chief  advantage, 
that  he  will  "  cram  "  his  intellectual  nutriment  less  and 
digest  it  more  perfectly. 

It  may  be  said,  on  the  other  hand,  that  all  these  ad- 
vantages may  be  secured  without  abandoning  the  most 
stringent  enforcement  of  the  daily  recitations.     Exami- 


138  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

nations  may  be  multiplied  as  is  proposed,  and  to  any 
extent,  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the  pupil  a  general 
view  of  and  command  over  an  author  and  a  subject, 
and  great  comparative  importance  may  be  attached  to 
such  reviews  and  the  student's  performances,  in  the  es- 
timate of  his  scholarship.  But  the  advantages  of  fre- 
quent reviews  of  this  kind  need  not  be  purchased  by 
the  sacrifice  of  the  advantages  which  are  peculiar  to 
the  daily  recitations,  at  which  the  presence  of  the  pupil 
is  enforced,  and  his  performances  are  marked.  The 
claim  that  the  substitution  of  the  one  for  the  other  as  a 
measure  of  scholarship  would  exclude  or  discourage 
"  cramming,"  is,  in  our  view,  not  only  wholly  untenable, 
but  it  suggests  the  most  serious  objection  against  such 
examinations,  when  made  the  sole  criterion,  that  they 
eminently  foster  the  cramming  spirit.  Indeed,  we  do 
not  hesitate  to  affirm  that  nothing  can  intensify  this  spirit 
so  actively  as  the  introduction  of  such  examinations  as  a 
substitute  for  daily  enforced  recitations.  In  any  school, 
college,  or  university,  let  a  single  day  of  the  week  or  the 
month  be  devoted  to  a  review  and  examination  upon  the 
work  of  the  week  or  the  month ;  and  let  this  be  ac- 
cepted as  the  chief  or  only  test  of  that  work,  and  the 
day  or  two  preceding  will  inevitably  be  devoted  to  the 
most  energetic  cramming.  The  first  part  of  the  week 
or  month  will,  by  the  less  faithful  and  conscientious  be 
wasted  or  expended  on  favorite  pursuits,  and  the  work 
that  should  have  been  distributed  evenly  among  the 
several  days  will  be  crowded  into  one  or  two.  Even 
the  more  studious  and  ambitious  will  be  more  careless 
of  their  daily  studies  and  of  course  less  qualified  to  ap- 
preciate and  assimilate  the  instruction  which  is  given. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I39 

and  will  rely  upon  their  capacity  to  employ  their  con- 
centrated energies  in  reviewing.  If  it  be  said  that  the 
daily  recitations  involve  a  daily  cram,  we  can  only  re- 
ply that  a  daily  cram  is  less  objectionable  than  a  weekly 
or  monthly  cram,  inasmuch  as  the  quantity  taken  is 
smaller  and  the  unnatural  strain  of  the  powers  is  less 
severe.  Moreover,  the  daily  so-called  cram  renders  the 
strain  at  the  end  of  the  week  or  month  less  severe.  In- 
deed it  makes  the  labor  less  a  labor  of  cramming  at  all. 
Superficial,  indolent,  and  unfaithful  men  will  abuse  any 
system,  and  hence  the  only  question  worth  considering 
is,  which  system  grants  facilities  for  the  least  abuse. 

To  dispense  with  the  enforced  recitation,  moreover, 
would  be  to  throw  away  one  of  the  chief  incidental  ad- 
vantages attained  by  college  discipline,  apart  from  the 
special  culture  which  it  imparts,  and  that  is  the  training 
of  the  man  to  the  power  and  habit  of  successfully  con- 
centrating and  controlling  his  powers.  Such  a  discipline 
trains  a  man  to  bring  his  powers  to  act  with  their  ut- 
most energy,  wdthin  a  given  time,  to  meet  an  impend- 
ing necessity.  To  be  able  to  do  this  under  the  varying 
calls  of  life  with  effect,  is  one  great  secret  of  success  in 
any  occupation  or  pursuit.  To  be  able  to  do  this  in  the 
greatest  diversity  of  circumstances  and  exigencies,  gives 
a  man  the  widest  and  most  varied  influence.  R.  W. 
Emerson  says  very  finely  in  his  '"  Conduct  of  Life,"  that 
of  the  conditions  of  success  "  the  first  is  the  stopping 
off  decisively  our  miscellaneous  activity,  and  concen- 
trating our  force  on  one  or  a  few  points ;  as  the  gar- 
dener, by  severe  pruning,  forces  the  sap  of  the  tree  into 
one  or  two  vigorous  limbs,  instead  of  suffering  it  to 
spindle  into  a  sheaf  of  twigs."     "  The  one  prudence  in 


I40  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

life  is  concentration ;  the  one  evil  is  dissipation  ;  and  it 
makes  no  difference  whether  our  dissipations  are  coarse 
or  fine  ;  property  and  its  cares,  friends,  and  a  social 
habit,  or  politics,  or  music,  or  feasting.  Everything  is 
good  which  takes  away  one  plaything  and  delusion 
more,  and  drives  us  home  to  add  one  stroke  of  faithful 
work."  "Concentration  is  the  secret  of  strength  in 
politics,  in  war,  in  trade, — in  short,  in  all  management 
of  human  affairs.  One  of  the  high  anecdotes  of  the 
world  is  the  reply  of  Newton  to  the  inquiry,  '  how  he 
had  been  able  to  achieve  his  discoveries  ?' — '  By  always 
intending  my  mind.'  "  "  A  man  who  has  that  presence 
of  mind  which  can  bring  to  him  on  the  instant  all  he 
knows,  is  worth  for  action  a  dozen  men  who  know  as 
much,  but  can  only  bring  it  to  light  slowly."  The  con- 
stantly enforced  recitations  of  the  college,  following 
each  other  day  after  day,  and  more  than  once  in  the 
day,  made  important  as  the  conditions  of  success  and 
honor,  and  continued  for  several  years,  are  an  admir- 
able discipline  to  this  self-control  and  self-mastery. 
They  hold  a  man  to  his  work  by  a  pressure  that  he 
cannot  evade.  They  train  him  to  bring  his  powers  to 
act  upon  a  task  that  must  be  achieved  within  the  hour. 
They  help  him  to  despise  slight  indispositions,  whether 
of  body  or  of  mind,  to  set  aside  inertia  and  headaches, 
to  turn  from  the  novel  and  the  newspaper,  the  gymna- 
sium and  the  rowing  match,  in  order  to  meet  the  de- 
mands of  the  teacher  and  the  class  room.  If  this  is 
not  the  way  fo  treat  the  pupil  as  a  man,  it  is  the  way  to 
make  him  a  ma?i, — with  a  man's  command  over  his  in- 
tellect, and  a  man's  capacity  to  summon  and  direct  his 
energies  at  will,  and  to  energize  them  up  to  the  demand 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I4I 

of  every  occasion.     It  is  because  of  this  very  result  that 
the  Enghsh  university  system  has  clone  so  much  for  its 
reading   men,  and  made  out  of  them  the  mature,  self- 
poised,  efficient  men  of  action  ;  and  when  the  occasion 
required,  men  of  effective  speech.     Notwithstanding  all 
the  evils  of  excessive  cramming,  increased  as  they  are 
by  the  enormous  pecuniary  value  of  the  prizes  in  pros- 
pect, notwithstanding,  too,  the  one-sidedness  of  the  cur- 
riculum prescribed,  the  training,  simply  as  training,  of 
these  universities,  has  done  more  for  England  and  more 
for  the  world  than  has  ever  yet  been  acknowledged.     It 
has    hardened    the    bone    to    a   compacter    grain,   and 
toughened  the  muscle  to  a  finer  fibre  than  any  other, 
simply  because  it  has  aroused  and  concentrated  the  en- 
ergies for  the  accomplishment  of  definite  tasks,  and  be- 
cause, after  the  training  of  its  champions  was  complete, 
the  empire  of  England  has  furnished  for  them  an  arena 
in  diplomacy,  in  commerce,  in  politics,  and  at  the  bar, 
which  was  fitted  still  further  to  excite  and  to  display 
these  truly   consummate    powers.     However  justly  we 
may  criticise  or  complain  of  the  universities  of  England 
for  doing  so  little  for  science,  or  philosophy,  or  even 
for  the  best  kind  of  philology,  we  ought  never  to  over- 
look what  they  have  done  for  the  training  of  the  men 
who  have  wrought  the  deeds,  and  uttered  the  thoughts, 
and  inspired  the  sentiments  which  have  made  England 
so  great.     But  while  the  universities  have  so  efficiently 
trained  their  honor  or  class-men,  it  is  the  universal  testi- 
mony, that  the  pass-men  have  been  as  grossly  neglected. 
And  why  ?     Chiefly  because  they  are  not  held  to  the 
responsibility  of  daily  work  under  the  pressure  of  a  con- 
stantly impending  necessity.     We  would  not,  if  w^e  could, 


142  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

imitate  their  pass  system  with  its  irregular  attendance  at 
lectures,  its  feeble  and  intermitted  supervision,  its  per- 
sistent and  allowed  dissipations  and  extravagance,  its 
foolish  waste  of  money  and  its  more  fearful  waste  of 
time  and  opportunity.  We  cannot  imitate  their  class 
system  if  we  would,  because  we  have  no  such  prizes 
as  they  possess  by  which  to  enforce  and  stimulate 
labor.  The  university  of  Oxford  distributes  yearly 
in  scholarships,  fellowships,  etc.,  the  sum  of  120,000 
pounds  sterling,  the  hope  of  sharing  in  which,  excites 
some  four  or  five  hundred  reading  men.  It  may  be 
safe  to  dispense  with  daily  examinations  for  reading 
and  honor-men  when  the  hope  of  such  rewards  con- 
stantly inspires  and  impels  to  labor.  The  failure  of 
such  a  system  to  influence  the  pass-men  to  constant  in- 
dustry, and  often  even  to  the  appearance  or  profession 
of  such  industry,  should  warn  the  American  colleges 
against  any  similar  relaxation  in  the  tension  of  the 
feeble   incitements  which '  they   can   apply. 

The  German  system  has  also  prizes  in  the  civil  and 
professional  appointments,  which  are  determined  by  the 
result  of  every  examination  from  the  beginning  of  the 
gymnasial  to  the  end  of  the  university  life,  and  which 
are  most  powerfully  reinforced  by  the  intense  and  pre- 
vailing intellectual  activity  of  the  cultivated  classes. 
But  the  German  system  fails  effectively  to  reach  the 
lower  two-thirds  of  the  university  men,  notwithstand- 
ing all  that  the  rigid  and  compulsory  training  of  the 
gymnasium  has  previously  done  for  them. 

As  to  the  objection,  or  the  sentiment  on  which  it  is 
founded,  that  to  labor  under  compulsion  or  for  marks  is 
degrading  to  the  manhood  of  the  pupil ;  neither  seems 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 43 

to  US  to  require  consideration  or  discussion.  The  con- 
straint is  moral,  and  is  of  precisely  the  same  character 
which  meets  a  man  all  his  life  long.  It  is  only  made 
more  definite  and  efficient  in  the  college.  It  neither 
excludes  nor  weakens  the  nobler  motives  of  self-culture 
and  of  duty,  the  motives  derived  from  the  love  of  learn- 
ing, or  from  a  desire  to  be  useful  to  man  and  to  do 
honor  to  God.  Marks  for  what  a  man  is  and  does  are 
everywhere  noted  for  or  against  him,  with  more  or  less 
justice,  as  long  as  he  lives,  and  for  all  his  efforts,  in  the 
judgments  of  his  fellows,  and,  as  we  are  taught,  even  in 
the  books  of  the  Eternal  Judge. 

We  object,  then,  most  strenuously  to  the  substitution 
of  the  occasional  examination  for  the  daily  recitation, 
because  wherever  it  'has  been  used  it  has  failed  even 
under  the  most  advantageous  circumstances  ;  because 
it  can  be  applied  in  the  American  colleges  with  a  com- 
paratively feeble  efficiency ;  and  because  the  stimulus 
and  training  involved  in  constant  and  required  intel- 
lectual application,  is  more  needed  and  is  less  valued 
in  this  country  than  in  any  other.  A  few  self-educated 
men  reach  the  same  results  on  similar  conditions  in  differ- 
ent circumstances,  as  the  lamented  Lincoln  forced  him- 
self to  master  Euclid's  geometry,  and  learned  in  that  way 
to  master  his  own  intellectual  powers.  But  the  great 
mass  of  our  ruling  minds,  and  among  them  a  consider- 
able number  of  college  graduates,  are  shrewd  and 
quick-witted,  rather  than  reflective  and  self-directing — 
men  of  intense  intellectual  activity  and  exalted  self-con- 
fidence, rather  than  patient  and  scrutinizing  seekers  af- 
ter truth.  What  is  worst  of  all,  many  of  them  are  men 
of  little   reverence  for  truth   and   small   confidence   in 


144  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

principles  ;  in  part  because  they  have  never  been  taught 
to  know  the  value  and  dignity  of  conscientious,  thor- 
ough, and  methodical  work.  They  believe  in  getting 
on  by  their  wits  rather  than  by  work — which  often  sig- 
nifies by  little  of  wisdom  and  less  of  honesty. 

If  there  is  any  country  where  the  sobering  and  disci- 
plining influence  of  a  vigorous  but  enlightened  training 
from  books  is  needed,  or  where  it  is  fitted  to  be  most 
efficient,  it  is  in  a  country  like  this.  If  there  is  any 
country  where  those  who  themselves  have  had  experi- 
ence of  the  benefits  of  college  discipline,  and  have  seen 
its  power  over  their  fellows,  and  to  whom,  withal,  is  en- 
trusted the  direction  of  the  discipline  and  instruction  of 
wealthy  and  influential  seats  of  learning,  should  be  slow- 
in  relaxing  the  efficiency  of  its  forces,  it  is  the  country 
in  which  presumptuous  demagogues,  both  lay  and  cleri- 
cal, editorial  and  speech-making,  cry  one  thing  one  day 
and  another  thing  the  next,  and  where  quacks  in  edu- 
cation, religion,  and  politics  of  every  variety  and  degree 
find  a  ready  hearing  and  devoted  partisans. 

A  continued  residence  at  college,  or  keeping 07ie' s  terms, 
has  been  esteemed  important  in  all  the  American  col- 
leges. Such  residence  has  ordinarily  been  required  as 
a  condition  for  the  first  degree.  The  practice  of  short- 
ening the  course  by  over-leaping  a  year  or  a  term,  or  of 
presenting  one's  self  for  examination  at  any  time,  has 
not  been  allowed,  on  the  general  theory  that  no  person, 
unless  in  very  extraordinary  circumstances,  can  perform 
the  work  of  two  years  or  of  two  terms  in  one,  and  there- 
fore no  one  should  be  admitted  to  examination  in  ad- 
vance of  his  standing.  This  practice  and  the  theory 
on  which  it  is  founded,  are  called  in  question  by  some, 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  145 

and  the  doctrine  is  advanced  and  occasionally  put  in 
practice,  that  residence  and  class  standing  should  both 
be  disregarded,  provided  the  pupil  can  pass  the  pre- 
scribed examinations.  So  much  prominence  has  of 
late  been  attached  to  competitive  examinations  all  the 
world  over,  that  the  importance  of  residence  and  con- 
tinued study  has  been  somewhat  overlooked,  and  it 
would  not  be  surprising  if  the  practice  should  be  rec- 
ommended and  introduced  in  some  colleges  of  ceasing 
to  require  continued  or  regular  residence,  and  of  throw- 
ing open  the  examinations  for  degrees — possibly  for  hon- 
ors— to  all  well-accredited  applicants. 

We  do  not  propose  to  argue  the  subject  of  residence 
at  length.  It  will  come  up  again  in  another  connec- 
tion. We  will  content  ourselves  by  citing  the  follow- 
ing testimony  of  Matthew  Arnold,  in  respect  to  the 
German  practice : 

"  A  public  school-boy,  who,  to  evade  the  rule  requir- 
ing two  years  in  prima,  leaves  the  gymnasium  from  se- 
amda,  goes  to  a  private  school  or  private  tutor,  and  of- 
fers himself  for  examination  within  two  years,  needs  a 
special  permission  from  the  minister  in  order  to  be  ex- 
amined. So  well  do  the  Prussian  authorities  know  how 
insufficient  an  instrument  for  their  object — that  of  pro- 
moting the  national  culture  and  filling  the  professions 
with  fit  men, — is  the  bare  examination  test ;  so  averse 
are  they  to  cram  ;  so  clearly  do  they  perceive  that  what 
forms  a  youth,  and  what  he  should  in  all  ways  be  in- 
duced to  acquire,  is  the  orderly  development  of  his  fac- 
ulties under  good  and  trained  teaching. 

"With  this  view  all  the  instructions  for  examination 
are  drawn  up.     It  is  to  tempt  candidates  to  no  special 

7 


146  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

preparation  and  effort,  but  to  such- as  a  scholar  of  fair 
ability  and  proper  diligence,  may,  at  the  end  of  his 
school  course,  come  to  with  a  quiet  mind  and  without  a 
a  painful  preparatory  effort  tending  to  relaxation  and 
torpor  as  soon  as  the  effort  is  over.  The  total  cultiva- 
tion ( Gesamintbildung)  of  the  candidate  is  the  great 
matter,  and  this  is  why  the  two  years  of  prima  are  pre- 
scribed, '  that  the  instruction  in  this  highest  class  may 
not  degenerate  into  a  preparation  for  the  examination, 
that  the  pupil  may  have  the  requisite  time  to  come 
steadily  and  without  over-hurrying  to  the  fullness  of  the 
measure  of  his  powers  and  his  character;  that  he  may 
be  securely  and  thoroughly  formed,  instead  of  being  be- 
wildered and  oppressed  by  a  mass  of  information  hast- 
ily heaped  together.'  All  tumultuarische  Vorbereitiwg, 
and  all  stimulation  of  vanity  and  emulation  is  to  be  dis- 
couraged, and  the  examination,  like  the  school,  is  to 
regard  das  Wesentliche  u?id  Dauer?ide — the  substantial 
and  enduring.  Perverse  sticdet  qui  examinibus  studet, 
was  a  favorite  saying  of  Wolf's."  (Schools  and  Uni- 
versities^ etc.) 

We  had  proposed  to  treat  distinctly  of  the  class  sys- 
tem which  is  almost  universally  adopted  in  the  Ameri- 
can colleges.  It  has  not  escaped  severe  criticism,  and 
at  present  is  likely  to  be  exposed  to  still  more  earnest 
objections.  It  must  stand  or  fall  with  the  retention  or 
abandonment  of  the  several  features  which  we  have 
noticed,  viz.,  a  prescribed  curriculum,  an  enforced  and 
daily  recitation,  and  a  continued  residence  or  keeping 
of  terms.  Some  of  its  more  important  relations,  as  a 
means  of  intellectual  culture  and  excitement,  will  need 
to  be  considered  when  we  come  to  speak  of  the  American 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I47 

college  as  a  society  having  a  common  and  organic  life. 
These  several  features  of  the  American  college  sys- 
tem involve  of  necessity  a  constant  enforcement  of  faith- 
ful study  by  the  instructors,  and  a  vigorous  application 
of  stringent  discipline.  A  curriculum,  frequent  recita- 
tions and  constant  residence,  can  have  no  force  or  effect 
unless  they  are  prescribed  and  enforced  as  law,  and  are 
made  the  conditions  of  enjoying  the  advantages  and 
reaping  the  rewards  which  the  college  holds  in  its  gift. 
This  is  so  obvious  as  to  need  no  elucidation.  Young 
men  who  are  too  manly  in  their  spirit,  and  too  inde- 
pendent in  their  feelings  to  acquiesce  in  such  a  disci- 
pline, are  too  old  in  their  feelings  to  be  members  of  a 
college,  however  young  they  may  be  in  years.  A  year's 
trial  of  the  discipline  of  a  banking  or  trading  house,  on 
shipboard,  or  in  the  army,  might  set  them  back  a  half- 
score  of  years  in  fancied  age,  and  serve  to  correct  some- 
what their  ideas  of  the  consistency  of  manliness  with  re- 
sponsibility and  supervision.  Their  confident  advisers 
of  the  press  who  recommend  the  abandonment  of  su- 
pervision and  constraint  over  such  high-minded  youths, 
may  be  properly  advised  in  turn  to  tr}^  the  experiment 
in  their  own  printing  offices  and  among  the  members  of 
their  own  editorial  corps. 


14^  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


VI. 

THE   EVILS  OF  THE   COLLEGE  SYSTEM  AND 
THEIR  REMEDIES. 

We  neither  overlook  nor  deny  the  evils  of  the  college 
system.  The  evils  attending  upon  its  administration 
are  neither  few  nor  slight.  The  spirit  of  routine  is  con- 
stantly ready  to  take  possession  of  both  instructors  and 
pupils,  inducing  in  the  one  the  mechanical  and  per- 
functory performance  of  duty,  and,  in  the  other,  the 
constrained  and  enforced  preparation  of  lessons.  The 
pupil  is  constantly  in  danger  of  regarding  the  lesson  as 
a  task  imposed,  and  of  overlooking  both  the  necessity 
that  tasks  should  be  imposed,  and  the  fact  that  every 
task  brings  the  opportunity  for  intellectual  energy  and 
improvement.  Other  modes  of  employing  and  improving 
the  mind  which  are  more  exciting,  or  are  rewarded  by 
the  acclaim  of  one's  society  or  one's  set,  such  as  rhe- 
torical exercises  and  feats  of  reading  and  debate,  or 
striking  acquisitions  out  of  the  common  line,  whether 
in  science,  or  letters,  or  in  achievements  less  intellect- 
ual, are  constantly  preferred  to  the  more  sober  and 
common-place  duties  of  the  college  work.  The  resort 
to  all  sorts  of  expedients  to  meet  the  enforced  recita- 
tion, the  use  of  assistance  to  avoid  dishonor  or  dis- 
credit, excessive  cramming  for  those  examinations 
which,  properly  used,  furnish  the  best  of  opportunities^ 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I49 

for  a  leisurely  review,  and  the  prevalent  attitude  of  an- 
tagonism against,  instead  of  cooperation  with,  the  aims 
of  instructors,  are  too  widely  prevalent  and  too  notori- 
ous to  be  denied  or  overlooked.  The  disposition  to 
find  in  the  unconstrained  pursuit  of  favorite  studies  for 
the  fancied  future  an  excuse  for  the  neglect  of  studies 
that  are  imposed  in  the  present,  is  fearfully  prevalent. 
Self-reproach  for  neglect,  or  chagrin  at  disappointed 
expectations,  or  vexation  at  some  real  or  fancied  injus- 
tice, is  made  the  pretext  or  excuse  for  persistent  idle- 
ness and  systematic  neglect.  The  college  studies  are 
declared  by  consent  to  be  a  bore,  even  by  many  who 
derive  from  them  no  inconsiderable  advantage.  Even 
the  most  faithful  and  conscientious  students  are  de- 
terred from  pursuing  their  studies  in  the  most  enlight- 
ened spirit,  and  from  perfecting  and  fixing  them  by  ad- 
ditional thought  and  research,  through  the  influence  of 
associations  which  their  better  judgments  resist,  and  of 
a  prevailing  sentiment  of  which  in  their  hearts  they  are 
ashamed.  Studying  for  rank  and  cramming  for  imme- 
diate effect,  both  tend  to  dwarf  the  love  of  knowledge 
itself  and  to  induce  bad  intellectual  habits. 

The  instructors,  also,  are  in  danger  of  being  either 
vexed  or  discouraged,  and  so  of  becoming  unsympa- 
thizing  with  and  distrustful  of  their  pupils.  Their  best 
instructions  are  not  always  listened  to,  or  are  not  appro- 
priated, through  the  impatience  or  the  listlessness  of 
their  constrained  and  wearied  pupils  ;  often  "  cabined, 
cribbed,  confined,"  through  the  poverty  of  the  college,  in 
low  and  ill-ventilated  class-rooms.  The  perpetual  in- 
culcation of  elementary  knowledge  becomes  wearisome 
and  disgusting  to  the  men  whose  sympathies  with  the 


150  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

young  are  not  perpetually  renewed.  The  experience 
of  the  same  failures,  the  same  mistakes,  and  the  same 
follies  is  wearisome  to  the  spirit.  The  antagonism 
and  slyness  of  his  pupils  tend  to  evoke  inhumanity 
and  suspicion  in  the  teacher.  Hence  the  want  of  earn- 
estness and  hopefulness,  of  courage  and  patience,  some- 
times the  want  of  interest  in  the  truths  imparted  and 
in  the  pupils  to  whom  they  are  given,  which  occasion- 
ally settle  down  upon  the  mind  and  heart  of  the  half- 
paid  and  unthanked  college  teacher,  which  paralyze  his 
efforts,  and  eat  out  his  life,  and  sometimes  make  him 
pedagogical,  hard,  and  dry,  or  supercilious,  distant,  and 
"  Donnish." 

Not  a  few  of  these  evils  are  incidental  to  any  system 
of  instruction,  whether  optional  or  enforced.  The  few 
that  are  occasioned  by  the  enforced  curriculum  of  the 
college,  would,  if  it  were  abandoned,  be  exchanged  for 
others  more  serious,  and  their  name  would  not  be  small. 
It  is,  however,  a  fair  and  important  question,  by  what 
expedients  can  they  be  obviated  and  the  college  system 
retained, — as  it  must  be,  or  be  sacrificed  at  the  cost  of 
evils  manifold  greater  and  more  numerous  ? 

In  answer  to  this  question,  v/e  beg  leave  to  offer  the 
following  suggestions  : 

First  of  all,  an  adequate  and  somewhat  uniform  prep- 
aration of  knowledge  and  power  should  be  sought  for 
in  the  students,  and  as  far  as  possible  should  be  re- 
quired. We  would  allow  great  liberality  in  the  trial  of 
candidates,  but  if,  after  trial,  any  are  found  hopelessly 
deficient,  they  should  be  sent  down  either  to  another 
class  or  to  a  thorough-going  coach,  who  will  either  drive 
them  up  to  their  duty,   or  discipline   them   to  better 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  151 

habits  of  study  and  acquisition.  The  men  who  are  best 
prepared  and  whose  previous  studies  in  any  way  make 
it  easy  for  them  to  master  the  college  work,  should,  in 
case  the  class  is  divided  into  different  sections,  not  be 
allowed  to  go  into  the  section  of  lowest  attainment, 
but  should  be  compelled  to  keep  up  to  the  line  which 
is  fairly  within  their  reach.  Such  men  should  be  stim- 
ulated, if  possible,  by  some  additional  work  for  honors 
or  prizes,  especially  in  extra  classical  reading,  or  in 
mathematical  problems. 

As  it  is  notorious  that  not  a  few  enter  college  with  a 
superior  classical  preparation,  and  have  abundant  time 
for  extra  reading,  they  ought  to  be  encouraged  to  this 
by  a  special  examination  in  some  author  not  read  by 
the  class,  at  which  honors  should  be  given  to  all  who 
acquit  themselves  well,  and  success  be  made  to  count 
in  the  estimate  of  the  college  standing.  This  exam- 
ination should  require  something  more  than  the  or- 
dinary studying  which  is  exacted  in  the  recitation  room. 
By  a  similar  method,  encouragement  for  special  studies 
in  all  departments  of  knowledge  might  be  systemat- 
ically allowed.  In  order  to  provide  for  such  studies 
and  examinations,  as  well  as  to  give  somewhat  more 
freedom  and  variety  to  the  curriculum,  it  would  be  nec- 
essary that  the  time  of  the  students  should  be  less  cut 
up  by  an  excessive  number  of  exercises. 

There  are  many  reasons,  indeed,  wh}^,  in  the  later 
years  of  college  life,  the  recitations  should  not  be  so 
frequent,  in  order  to  avoid  this  evil  of  an  excessive  divis- 
ion of  the  time  ;  as  also  that  the  exercises  themselves 
might  be  less  exclusively  exercises  of  recitation,  and 
might  admit  more  and  more  largely  the  element  of  in- 


152  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

stmction.  It  would  be  most  desirable  if  the  instructor 
of  every  class  should  seem  to  be  a  fellow-worker  with 
his  pupils  as  in  the  English  Universities.  At  least 
the  habits  of  college  recitations  would  be  greatly  im- 
proved if  the  pupils  should  be  allowed  to  express  their 
own  difficulties  or  misgivings,  or  ask  questions  for  in- 
formation and  guidance.  To  this  end  the  apartments 
should  be  made  attractive  and  convenient,  and  lib- 
erally provided  with  every  accessory  in  the  way  of  apr 
paratus  and  illustrations.  No  classical  room  would  be 
any  the  less  a2:reeable  if  its  walls  were  hung  with  at- 
tractive maps  and  photographs.  The  instruction  need 
be  none  the  less  severe  and  exacting,  if  the  students 
were  allowed  to  breathe  a  respirable  atmosphere,  or  to 
sit  on  comfortable  benches.  The  hopeful  son  of  Tim. 
O'Flaherty  is  better  accommodated  at  the  age  of  ten 
in  the  palatial  public  school-houses  that  are  voted  him 
by  our  sovereigns,  than  is  the  delicate  son  of  a  million- 
aire in  the  class-rooms  of  colleges  which  have  educated 
thousands  of  the  intellectual  princes  of  the  land. 

The  instruction  of  the  colleges  should  be  made  as 
intellectual  and  as  wide-reaching  as  possible,  in  order 
that  the  drilling  processes  should  justify  themselves 
continually  to  the  judgment  of  the  most  stupid  and 
faithless.  Even  the  driest  analysis  of  word  or  sen- 
tence and  the  most  rigid  processes  of  the  mathematics 
may  be  enlivened  with  some  interesting  illustrations 
and  applications,  provided  the  instructor  be  a  man  of 
intellectual  breadth  and  have  a  desire  to  stimulate  and 
enlarge  the  minds  of  his  pupils.  The  teacher  of  the 
classics  may  teach  much  of  English  if  he  will,  while 
he  professes  to   instruct  only  in  Greek.     Geography, 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 53 

history,  and  ssthetical  criticism  can  scarcely  be  with- 
holden  if  the  teacher  has  a  well-stored  and  generous 
mind.  We  have  already  expressed  the  opinion  that  a 
less  strictly  grammatical  and  a  more  liberal  character 
should  be  given  to  classical  study  in  the  advanced  years 
of  the  course. 

It  would  not  be  amiss  if  more  frequent  instruction 
and  incitements  of  a  general  character  were  furnished 
in  respect  to  the  opportunities  for  improvement  which 
attend  each  of  the  stages  of  college  life,  and  occasional 
free  and  friendly  communications  were  made  respecting 
the  hindrances  and  aids  to  self-culture  and  the  best 
methods  of  making  the  most  of  the  college  curriculum. 
Perhaps  there  is  no  point  in  which  students  err  more 
seriously  than  in  respect  to  the  use  of  their  leisure,  the 
selection  of  private  or  special  studies,  the  direction  of 
their  reading  and  the  cultivation  of  facility  in  writing 
and  in  speech.  In  short,  while  the  disciplinary  pro- 
cesses should  be  enforced  with  the  utmost  rigor,  in  or- 
der that  they  may  be  efhcient,  the  intellect  of  the  pupils 
should  be  treated  as  little  as  possible  as  a  mechanical 
recipient  and  should  be  stimulated  and  enlarged  as 
rapidly  as  possible  to  independent  and  rational  activity. 
This  is  possible  only  on  the  condition  that  the  instruct- 
ors are  men  of  generous  intellectual  training,  that  they 
are  not  so  overworked  as  to  become  mere  educational 
drudges,  and  that  they  give  the  best  of  their  energies 
to  the  work  of  teaching  and  of  training.  The  instruct- 
ors of  a  college  should  be  men  who  are  not  merely  at 
home  in  their  own  departments,  but  who  understand 
and  appreciate  their  relations  to  other  sciences  and  to 
life.     Otherwise  they  cannot  teach  in  the  liberal  spirit 


154  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

and  with  the  generous  effect  which  are  to  be  desired. 
They  should  not  be  overworked  in  the  college  by  being 
tasked  too  many  hours  to  allow  them  to  make  progress 
in  their  favorite  studies  and  to  retain  their  freshness 
and  vigor  for  work  in  the  class-room.  Nor  should  they 
be  overworked  by  extra  labors  out  of  the  college  to  gain 
the  living  which  they  fairly  earn  and  which  the  college 
ought  to  provide.  They  should  also  give  the  choicest 
of  their  energies  and  zeal  to  the  service  of  the  college 
as  instructors. 

The  more  widely  cultured  an  instructor  is,  the  more 
liberal  will  be  the  spirit  and  effect  of  his  teaching,  all 
other  things  being  equal.  Consequently  to  deliver  the 
colleges  from  the  tendencies  of  routine,  they  must  be 
provided  with  men  of  liberal  culture  and  varied  intel- 
lectual endowments.  The  influence  of  such  teachers 
is  not,  however,  limited  to  the  spirit  and  manner  of 
their  direct  instructions.  The  presence  of  and  contact 
with  a  man  of  such  a  description,  who  occupies  the 
place  and  exercises  the  functions  of  an  instructor,  is 
itself  both  instruction  and  inspiration  of  the  most  ef- 
fective character.  The  driest  exercises  become  fresh 
when  conducted  by  such  teachers,  and  the  most  monot- 
onous routine  is  varied  by  their  admonitions  and  sym- 
pathy. The  regular  professors  and  instructors  should 
also  be  the  chief  reliance  of  the  college  for  the  purposes 
of  discipline  and  instruction,  and  even  for  the  ends  of 
incitement  and  enthusiasm.  Irregular  and  extraordinary 
lecturers  can  do  little  to  supply  their  deficiencies,  and 
also  very  serious  injury  when  they  seem  to  be  most  in- 
spiring. No  mistake  can  be  more  serious  than  that  to 
suppose  that  a  college  gains  very  largely  by  adding  to 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I55 

its  corps  of  professors  eminent  personages,  who  have 
little  or  no  active  concern  with  the  business  of  instruc- 
tion or  who  come  rarely  in  contact  with  the  students. 
The  continued  presence  of  a  resident  professor  of  ac- 
knowledged eminence,  or  the  occasional  appearance 
of  a  non-resident  lecturer  of  popular  renown,  neither 
of  whom  holds  a  constant  and  intimate  connection  with 
the  processes  of  instruction  and  moulding  that  are 
ever}^  day  forming  and  exciting  the  minds  and  charac- 
ters of  the  students,  is  of  comparatively  little  signifi- 
cance. To  attach  to  the  roll  of  a  college  a  list  of  names 
of  men  eminent  for  science  or  learning,  whose  connec- 
tion with  its  work  is  occasional  only,  may  gratify  the 
vanity  of  its  patrons  and  sound  largely  in  the  ear  of 
the  American  public,  but  it  adds  little  of  strength,  and 
may  impart  much  of  weakness,  to  the  efficiency  of  the 
corps.  By  the  same  rule,  to  found  so-called  chairs  of 
instruction  which  shall  serve  as  comfortable  provisions 
for  the  real  or  professed  devotees  of  special  sciences, 
may  promote  the  cause  of  science  (in  a  questionable 
way),  but  it  does  not  add  to  the  energ)^  or  effect  of  the 
college  or  university  as  a  place  of  training.  Even  sci- 
ence is  furthered  in  a  questionable  way  by  such  endow- 
ments, for  the  reason  that  the  man  who  is  called  to  the 
constant  service  of  instruction,  is  far  more  likely  to 
make  advances  in  his  own  department  than  the  man 
who  is  installed  upon  an  endowment  of  which  study, 
and  not  teaching,  is  the  chief  object.  The  German 
professors  lecture  their  one  or  two  hours  a  day  through 
the  academical  year,  and  yet  they  do  far  more  for  sci- ' 
ence  than  the  Fellows  at  Oxford  who  are  held  to  no 
duties  of  instruction  at  all. 


156  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

There  should  be  a  constant  advance  in  the  matter 
and  power  of  the  instruction  with  the  advance  of  the 
students  in  knowledge,  in  intellectual  tastes,  and  intel- 
lectual power,  as  well  as  in  the  self-reliance  and  re- 
sponsibilities of  manhood.  The  student  of  the  Fresh- 
man year  is  a  very  different  being  from  the  student  of 
the  Senior  year  and  he  requires  instruction  and  incite- 
ments of  a  different  description.  The  one  has  not 
wholly  ceased  to  be  a  boy  in  his  intellect  and  his  char- 
acter. The  other  has  begun  to  feel  himself  somewhat 
of  a  man  in  botlT.  It  is  senseless  to  absurdity,  to  in- 
struct or  to  govern  the  two  by  precisely  the  same 
methods.  We  have  already  given  our  reasons  for  modi- 
fying the  methods  of  classical  instruction,  with  the  pro- 
gress which  the  professor  may  presume  in  the  student 
—which  he  has  a  right  to  assume  as  the  ground  of  his 
instructions  ;  and  which  if  he  does  not  assume,  he  may 
dwarf  and  belittle  the  intellect  and  character  of  his  pu- 
pil by  the  very  earnestness  and  energy  with  which  he 
persists  in  treating  him  as  a  school-boy.  The  worst 
thing  that  can  be  said  about  the  college  system  as  at 
present  administered,  is  that  it  keeps  the  students  too 
completely  in  leading  strings  by  training  them  for  a  se- 
ries of  years  too  exclusively  after  the  same  exacting  and 
mechanical  methods.  It  should  be  the  constant  aim 
of  the  instructor  to  avoid  and  overcome  this  tendency 
by  quickening  the  intellect  and  stimulating  the  enthu- 
siasm of  his  pupils  as  efficiently  as  possible.  As  they 
advance  towards  manhood  he  should  teach  and  treat 
them  more  and  more  as  though  they  were  men.  He 
should  rise  above  their  knowledge  and  aspirations, 
rather  than  fall  below  them.     He  will  do  them  no  harm 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  157 

if  at  times  he  presumes  that  they  know  more  than  they 
do,  provided  he  understands  how  to  recur  to  elemen- 
tary truths  and  principles,  and  how  to  exemplify  these 
in  their  remoter  and  more  elevated  applications.  Some 
insist  as  we  have  seen,  upon  the  gradual  abandonment 
of  recitations  and  the  substitution  of  lectures  on  the 
ground  that  the  instructor  should  teach  more  and  ex- 
amine less,  as  the  student  becomes  more  mature.  For 
this  among  other  reasons  they  advocate  the  gradual  in- 
troduction of  the  university  system  to  the  higher  classes 
in  order  to  exorcise  the  school-boy  spirit.  Many  younger 
professors  who  are  fresh  froi7i  the  lectures  of  foreign 
universities  show  their  f res /mess  to  the  American  col- 
lege by  judging  that  to  lecture  is  alone  synonymous  with 
to  instruct.  They  overlook  the  fact  that  the  most  effect- 
ive instruction  is  that  which  is  personal  and  familiar, 
and  also  that  a  college  pupil  who  is  compelled  to  work 
and  to  give  account  of  his  performances  is  far  more 
promising  than  a  college  school-boy  who  is  inflated  with 
a  belief  in  his  capacity  to  take  knowledge  chiefly  by 
the  ear.  Dependence  and  docility,  even  if  carried  to 
excess,  are  better  in  the  long  run  than  cramming  and 
conceit.  Others  have  sought  to  deliver  the  college 
from  the  evils  in  question  by  introducing  a  great  va- 
riety of  studies  into  its  curriculum  or  by  making  many 
optional.  To  elevate  the  student  to  manly  efforts  and 
manly  tasks,  they  would  give  him  the  taste  of  several 
liberal  studies  or  at  least  the  choice  between  several, 
especially  in  the  later  years  of  the  course.  But  sad  ex- 
perience has  proven  that  to  crowd  too  many  important 
studies  upon  the  attention  just  as  the  mind  is  awakened 
to  respond  to  their  importance,  is  often  to  weary,  be- 


158  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

wilder,  and  discourage  it.  To  force  the  student  to  make 
imperfect  preparation  by  excessive  tasks,  is  ill  fitted  to 
excite  that  courage  and  hope  which  come  only  from 
actual  achievement.  To  give  him  the  choice  between 
several  is  often  to  tempt  him  to  work  excessively  and 
superficially,  or  to  avoid  the  most  difficult  although  con- 
fessed to  be  the  most  important  duties,  or  to  follow  an 
ignorant  or  factitious  preference  under  the  name  of 
obeying  a  prevailing  taste.  Indeed  both  the  listless- 
ness  and  unnatural  cramming  for  marks  and  honors 
with  which  the  colleges  are  now  afflicted  are  in  great 
part  owing  to  the  enforcement  upon  students,  of  studies 
too  high  for  their  capacities,  too  numerous  for  thorough 
mastery,  or  too  monotonous  for  ordinary  patience.  To 
attempt  to  avoid  or  prevent  these  evils  by  voluntary  at- 
tendance upon  lectures  would  be  to  go  further  in  a 
wrong  direction.  The  system  of  lecturing  allows  the 
teacher  to  be  almost  a  stranger  to  his  pupils  and  his 
pupils  to  be  strangers  to  him:  That  close  personal  ac- 
quaintance and  sympathy  which  is  the  only  condition 
of  successful  instruction  can  be  secured  only  by  the 
system  of  recitations.  To  deliver  the  colleges  from  the 
mechanical  and  school-boy  routine  which  are  so  justly 
complained  of,  we  need  first  of  all  a  system  of  skillful, 
progressive,  and  varied  instruction  which  shall  keep 
pace  with  the  growing  capacities  and  the  advancing 
tastes  of  students.  To  devise  and  enforce  such  a  sys- 
tem, a  corps  of  able  and  devoted  instructors  is  required 
who  shall  apply  to  their  work  the  best  energies  of  well 
trained  and  enthusiastic  minds.  No  selection  of  studies 
and  text  books,  however  wise  and  progressive,  will  of 
itself  educate  a  body  of  students.     No  system  of  disci- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  159 

pline  however  skillfully  devised  will  enforce  itself.  All 
men  tire  of  mere  routine — impatient  and  sensitive  youth, 
above  all — however  essential  its  pressure  and  repetition 
may  be  to  discipline,  unless  the  routine  be  made  living 
and  adaptive  by  the  skill  and  sympathy  of  a  teacher 
who  is  a  sympathizing  friend  and  guide  as  well  as 
monitor  and  overseer.  It  is,  then,  of  the  first  import- 
ance that  the  instructors  who  man  our  colleges  should 
be  men  of  high  general  and  special  culture.  It  is 
equally  important  that  such  men  should  not  merely  be 
attached  to  the  college,  but  should  become  its  working 
forces  by  actually  coming  into  frequent  contact  with  the 
students  as  efficient  instructors.  The  proposal  to  at- 
tach a  species  of  university  chairs  to  the  American  col- 
leges, to  be  filled  by  eminent  savants  or  specialists  who 
shall  simply  give  a  few  lectures  with  the  hope  of  stimu- 
lating and  exciting  the  students,  is  founded  on  a  seri- 
ous misconception  of  the  actual'  working  of  the  college 
system. 

It  would  be  far  better  for  the  efficiency  of  the  col- 
lege system  if  there  were  attached  to  every  large  col- 
lege a  corps  of  Fellows  to  whom  should  be  assigned 
special  duties  of  instruction  in  a  private  and  familiar 
way,  and  whose  intercourse  with  the  students  should 
diffiise  a  spirit  of  culture,  and  of  enthusiasm  for  self- 
improvement.  Such  Fellows  might  be  elected  in  special 
departments,  as  in  Greek,  Latin,  English  Literature,  His- 
tory and  Mathematics  ;  in  each  of  the  Natural  Sciences, 
and  Philosophy.  They  should  be  elected,  not  advanced 
on  examination,  that  college  rank  alone  need  not  deter- 
mine their  position,  but  the  capacity  to  receive  and  im- 
part culture,  and  general  desirableness  for  the  higher  con- 


l6o  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

siderations  of  character  and  promise.  They  should  be 
elected  for  a  term  of  years,  that  the  spirit  of  sloth  and 
self-indulgence  should  neither  in  fact  nor  in  appearance 
be  fostered  by  a  life  pension.  They  should  be  elected 
to  an  office  with  definite  duties,  as  examiners,  as  critics 
of  composition,  as  coaches  to  the  timid  or  the  halting, 
above  all  as  priv^ate  or  parlor  teachers  to  special  classes 
who  might  desire  improvement,  and  as  inspiring  friends 
to  the  whole  community.  They  should  be  advanced  to 
the  post  of  private  teachers  in  their  special  studies 
after  they  have  themselves  been  admitted  to  the  degree 
of  Doctor  of  Philosophy.  The  provision  for  their  sup- 
port should  be  ample  enough  to  satisfy  one  who  is  ani- 
mated with  a  desire  for  knowledge  and  self-improve- 
ment, or  who  aspires  to  a  literary  career  as  instructor, 
editor,  or  litterateur,  and  liberty  should  be  given  to 
teach  privately,  for  pay,  only  to  a  limited  extent.  The 
presence  of  such  a  body  of  studying  and  teaching  Fel- 
lows would,  it  is  believed,  be  most  efficient  in  elevating 
the  tone  of  the  whole  academic  body.  Being  fresh 
from  the  undergraduates,  they  would  retain  their  aca- 
demic sympathies  and  traditions.  Occupying  a  quasi- 
official  position,  and  being  entrusted  with  certain  du- 
ties, they  would  feel  their  responsibility  to  use  their  in- 
fluence in  the  right  direction.  The  addition  of  such  a 
corps  of  honorary  students  and  teachers  would  do  much 
towards  elevating  the  college  to  the  real  efficiency  and 
the  generous  spirit  of  the  university.  One  hundred 
thousand  dollars  expended  in  the  endowment  at  Yale 
or  Harvard  College  of  six  or  eight  such  fellowships, 
terminable  in  from  five  to  eight  years,  would  do  more 
to  furnish  the  country  with  a  real  university  than  the 


AND     THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC  l6l 

expenditure  of  a  million  in  founding  a  new  institution 
on  a  scale  of  magnificent  expectations.  Such  a  body 
of  Fellows  would  also  serve  as  a  school  for  the  training 
of  permanent  instructors. 

On  the  same  principle  and  for  similar  reasons,  we 
deem  it  absolutely  necessary  to  the  best  efficiency  of 
the  college  system,  that  much  of  the  instruction  should 
be  given  by  young  men  who  are  fresh  from  the  experi- 
ence of  college  life.  This  brings  up  the  much  vexed 
question  whether  Professors  should  in  all  cases  be  pre- 
ferred to  Tutors.  Upon  the  first  view  it  would  seem 
that  instruction  by  a  Professor  is  in  all  cases  to  be  pre- 
ferred when  it  can  be  had,  because  he  has  a  permanent 
interest  in,  as  well  as  responsibility  for  the  institution 
and  the  department  to  which  he  is  devoted,  and  because 
study  and  experience  will  render  him  more  competent  and 
successful.  For  these  reasons  it  has  been  confidently 
inferred  that  permanent  instructors,  whether  Professors 
or  Tutors,  who  have  taken  a  department  as  a  life  work, 
are  greatly  to  be  preferred.  On  the  other  side  it  is  to  be 
said,  that  a  man  fresh  from  his  college  experience  brings 
to  his  work  a  knowledge  of  the  latest  college  generation. 
As  a  young  man  he  is  naturally  more  accessible  to  the 
young  than  an  older  person,  is  more  ready  to  appreciate 
their  difficulties  and  to  sympathize  with  their  embar- 
rassments and  their  successes.  Above  all  he  is  capa- 
ble of  greater  labor  and  for  many  reasons  is  more 
patient  under  it,  and  is  therefore  more  likely  to  be  ex- 
acting, thorough,  and  persevering.  In  discipline  also 
he  is  more  resolute,  more  zealous,  and  more  enterpris- 
ing. A  professor  equally  young  is  often  not  as  valuable 
or  efficient  an  officer  as  a  tutor.     The  newly  acquired 


l62  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

official  position  of  the  professor  is  sometimes  an  em- 
barrassment to  his  success.  The  necessity  of  providing 
so  great  a  number  of  permanent  officers  as  a  large  col- 
lege requires,  would  involve  the  serious  risk  of  hasty- 
appointments  which  might  entail  upon  the  college  the 
evil  of  an  inferior  or  undesirable  officer  for  a  long  life- 
time. The  introduction  yearly  into  the  academic  body 
of  one  or  two  new  members  who  are  free  from  the  more 
serious  responsibilities  which  rest  upon  the  Professor,  is 
a  renewal  of  fresh  and  young  blood,  without  which  the 
body  tends  to  traditionalism,  stagnation,  or  official  stiff- 
ness. Moreover,  the  fact  is  not  to  be  forgotten  or  over- 
looked that  the  improvement  of  our  colleges,  as  their 
resources  increase,  will  necessarily  involve  a  very  great 
increase  in  careful  personal  tuition.  The  classes  must 
be  subdivided  into  very  much  smaller  divisions,  espe- 
cially in  the  earliest  years.  It  follows  of  necessity 
that  the  greater  minuteness  of  personal  instruction, 
as  well  as  the  increase  of  personal  sympathy,  will  in- 
volve the  necessity  that  the  tutorial  as  contrasted  with 
the  lecturing  function  should  be  in  more  abundant  re- 
quest. For  these  and  other  reasons  we  regard  the  tutor- 
ship as  essential  to  the  efficiency  and  life  of  any  con- 
siderable college.  The  office  ought,  however,  to  be 
placed  upon  a  better  footing  than  it  is  at  present  in 
most  colleges.  The  salaries  should  be  very  consider- 
bly  increased.  The  tenure  should  be  longer,  as  it 
would  be  if  the  office  were  more  lucrative.  The  office 
should  as  far  as  practicable  be  made  a  training  place  for 
the  professorate  by  limiting  the  duties  and  studies  of  the 
tutor  to  special  departments.  With  a  few  fellowships 
amply    endowed  ;    an    able    corps    of    efficient    tutors 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  163 

handsomely  paid,  and  to  whom  should  be  accorded  the 
honor  which  they  justly  deserve  of  being  indispensable 
to  the  successful  working  of  the  college  system ;  and 
with  a  full  corps  of  professors  in  the  several  depart- 
ments of  literature  and  science,  the  college  would  need 
nothing  except  that  all  these  officers  should  be  the  best 
who  are  attainable. 

Much  would  be  accomplished  for  the  unity  and  effec- 
tive working  of  the  college  system  as  well  as  for  the 
awakening  of  a  generous  enthusiasm  for  knowledge  and 
improvement,  if  the  heads  of  those  departments  in  which 
are  associate  professors  and  tutors  could  exercise  a  per- 
sonal  supervision  of  the  instruction  that  is  given.  The 
teaching  which  they  can  give  personally  must  be  con- 
fined to  a  single  class.  But  if  they  could  also  have 
leisure  and  opportunity  to  inspect  and  direct  the  teach- 
ing of  others,  if  they  could,  as  a  part  of  their  duty, 
visit  the  class-rooms  of  their  proper  subordinates,  they 
might  do  much  to  quicken  the  zeal  of  both  teachers 
and  pupils.  This  method  is  practiced  at  West  Point 
with  the  happiest  results. 

Many  other  expedients  might  be  devised  to  give 
greater  efficiency  to  the  college  system,  without  relax- 
ing in  the  least  from  its  thoroughness  or  departing- 
from  those  traditions  which  experience  has  established 
and  confirmed. 

We  owe  some  apology,  perhaps,  for  bringing  before 
the  public  these  suggestions  of  detail  in  which  they 
have  little  interest,  and  in  respect  to  the  merits  of 
which  they  are  scarcely  competent  to  form  an  opinion. 
We  mean  no  disrespect  when  we  say  that  the  American 
public,  even  that  part  of  it  which  is  made  up  of  the 


164  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

graduates  of  colleges,  are  as  unfitted  to  advise  in  re- 
spect to  the  details  of  the  management  of  a  college  as 
the'y  are  to  direct  the  details  of  managing  a.  railway,  a 
cotton  mill,  or  a  trading  house.  We  shall  therefore  say 
no  more  upon  the  subject  before  us.  The  discussion 
of  it  thus  far  in  these  few  particulars,  may  serve  to  con- 
vince our  tribunal  that  those  most  familiar  with  these 
institutions  are  as  well  acquainted  with  their  defects 
and  as  sensitively  desirous  that  they  should  be  re- 
moved as  are  the  public  who  criticise  them  so  freely. 
A  few  topics  of  more  general  interest  remain,  upon 
which  we  still  ask  a  hearing. 


AND   THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 63 


VII. 

THE  COMMON  LIFE  OF  THE   COLLEGE. 

The  most  of  the  topics  which  we  have  in  mind  relate 
to  the  college  as  a  C07ninu7iity.  Sufficient  prominence  is 
not  always  given  to  the  social  and  common  life  which 
characterizes  most  of  the  American  colleges.  There 
are  a  few  of  these  institutions,  it  is  true,  in  which  these 
influences  are  not  especially  noticeable.  Those  col- 
leges in  our  large  cities  in  which  nearly  all  the  students 
reside  at  home,  and  none  live  in  common  lodgings,  have 
a  much  less  marked  and  energetic  public  life.  The 
students  in  these  institutions  are  not  shut  up  to  the  so- 
ciety of  one  another.  They  are  not  separated  from 
the  life  of  the  family  ;  for  this  continues  to  exert  its 
accustomed,  though  a  somewhat  divided  influence. 
The  excitements  of  society  out  of  the  family  are  as 
much  within  the  reach  of  the  student  as  before  he  en- 
tered college,  and  are  likely  with  the  progress  of  his 
student-life  to  be  more  and  more  attractive  and  en- 
grossing. The  intellectual  influences  of  the  students 
upon  one  another  are  mainly  restricted  to  the  class- 
room and  the  occasional  debate.  They  do  not  proceed 
from  a  social  life  which  is  created  by  residing  in  com- 
mon lodgings,  eating  at  common  tables,  and  participa- 
ting in  common  conversations,  sports,  and  festivitieSc 


l66  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

Those  colleges  in  which  the  number  of  students  is  very 
small,  furnish  a  jDublic  opinion,  which,  it  may  be,  is  less 
active  for  evil ;  possibly  one  that  is  less  efficient  and 
controlling  for  good.  It  may  not  be  easy  to  analyze 
this  subtle  but  most  potent  agency  into  its  various  ele- 
ments and  to  assign  to  each  constituent  its  relative 
force.  Indeed  the  product  itself  is  far  from  being  a 
constant  quantity.  It  is  not  the  same  in  any  two  insti- 
tutions ;  each  individual  college  having  a  genius  loci  of 
its  own,  which  is  in  part  dependent  on  traditionary  in- 
fluences and  in  part  affected  by  the  force  of  living  men 
and  of  current  events.  This  spirit  varies  in  the  same 
college,  and  it  may  be  with  each  college  generation. 
There  are,  however,  a  few  salient  features  that  are  com- 
mon to  all  these  colleges  and  that  are  active  at  all 
times,  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  enumerate. 

These  influences  are  not  always  adequately  estimated 
even  by  those  who  have  enjoyed  the  exhilaration  and 
have  been  stimulated  by  the  force  of  this  highly  oxy- 
genated atmosphere.  Those  who  have  not  experienced 
them  find  it  difficult  to  estimate  them  at  their  real  value, 
and  often  listen  with  incredulous  questionings  to  the 
representations  of  their  great  importance,  or  look  with 
silent  wonder  upon  the  excitement  which  they  occasion 
in  the  young  collegian  as  he  begins  to  feel  the  stimulus 
of  this  peculiar  life,  and  in  the  gray-headed  student 
whenever  he  greets  an  old  classmate  with  an  unmistak- 
able heartiness  or  reverts  to  the  scenes  of  his  college 
life  with  a  special  enthusiasm.  It  is  important  that  they 
should  not  be  overlooked  in  any  attempt  to  vindicate 
the  college  system  against  the  prejudices  or  misconcep- 
tions which  are  entertained  by  its  censors  and  judges 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  167 

of  the  American  public.  Possibly  the  discussion  may 
result  in  a  higher  appreciation  of  the  indispensable 
value  of  such  an  agency  in  a  state  of  society  like  our 
own  and  of  the  duty  resting  upon  the  philanthropist 
and  the  patriot  to  make  it  more  efficient  and  abundant 
in  its  influences  for  good. 

The  college  community  is  emphatically  an  isolated 
community ;  more  completely  separated  and  farther  re- 
moved than  almost  any  other  from  the  ordinary  and  al- 
most universally  pervading  influences  of  family  and 
social  life.  When  the  student  leaves  his  home  to  enter 
college,  it  is  true  that  in  a  most  important  sense  he 
leaves  it  forever.  He  literally  leaves  father  and  mother, 
not  in  his  affections  or  his  respect ;  for  both  of  these 
feelings  may  remain  with  him  and  grow  stronger  and 
tenderer  with  absence  and  the  progress  of  years  ;  but 
he  does  leave  them  in  respect  to  the  controlling  power 
which  they  are  to  exert  over  his  opinions,  sentiments, 
and  aims.  He  may  do  this  unconsciously  and  most  un- 
willingly, but  he  does  it  none  the  less  truly  and  emphat- 
ically. When  the  father  has  carefully  provided  for  the 
comfort  of  his  son  in  the  apartments  which  are  hence- 
forward to  be  his  new  home,  he  little  thinks  of  the  im- 
port of  what  he  has  done.  When  the  mother  takes 
her  affectionate  and  most  anxious  leave  of  the  boy  who 
goes  forth  into  his  new  life,  she  little  dreams  how  true 
it  is  that  she  loses  him  as  a  boy  forever.  The  public 
opinion  of  the  little  community  which  has  hitherto 
formed  his  aspirations  and  his  hopes,  his  principles  and 
his  prejudices,  is  henceforth  to  cease  to  be  controlling  ; 
in  the  future  it  will  either  entirely  give  way  to  another, 
or  will  share  with  it  a  disputed  and  divided  influence. 


1 68  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

The  public  opinion  of  that  larger  community  of  man- 
kind which  had  begun  to  be  felt  through  the  openings 
which  the  family  life  had  allowed,  is  swept  away  by  the 
new  atmosphere  that  rushes  around  him,  and  gradually 
but  quickly  becomes  all-absorbing  and  controlling. 
Removed  from  the  restraints  of  home,  not  yet  sub- 
jected to  the  restraints  and  responsibilities  of  society  and 
its  public  opinion,  the  college  student  is  abruptly  intro- 
duced into  an  isolated  and  peculiar  community,  which 
is  eminently  self-contained  and  self-sufficing,  most  en- 
ergetic in  its  action  and  all-pervading  in  its  presence. 
This  common  opinion  is  sensitive  and  changeable ; 
often  it  is  capricious  and  unreasonable  ;  it  exerts  over 
all  the  members  of  the  commonwealth  a  subtle  and  re- 
sistless fascination.  Something  of  this  influence  is  ex- 
erted in  a  large  public  school — but  the  influences  of  the 
college  community  are  immensely  more  energetic  and 
enduring.  This  is  owing  to  many  reasons.  The  col- 
lege student  is  older,  and  though  for  that  reason  he 
should  be  less  pliable  and  more  self-relying  and  inde- 
pendent, yet  the  first  form  in  which  the  developing  man 
asserts  his  being  is  ordinarily  to  attach  himself  to  a  so- 
ciety of  those  who  like  himself  are  ready  to  withstand 
the  control  of  his  "  natural  enemies."  It  is  no  para- 
dox to  say  that  the  first  essay  of  the  student's  inde- 
pendence is  often  an  act  of  prostrate  subserviency  to 
the  opinion  of  the  college  community.  This  opinion 
he  at  first  has  little  share  in  forming  ;  he  does  little  else 
than  yield  himself  to  the  sentiment  which  he  finds  already 
formed.  This  community  has  its  traditions,  which  are 
represented  to  be  sacred  by  age  and  uniform  observ- 
ance ;  its  customs,  which  are  so  ancient  that  the  mem- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  169 

ory  of  man  runneth  not  to  the  contrar}',  i.  e.,  for  one 
college  generation  ;  its  self-constituted  and  venerable 
lawgivers  in  the  guise  of  certain  loud  mouthed  person- 
ages who  are  often  little  better  than  disguised  sons  of 
Belial ;  its  natural  aristocracy  of  eminent  scholars,  dis- 
tinguished writers,  prize  and  honor  men,  boating  men, 
and  gymnasts.  To  these  should  be  added  its  ladies' 
men,  its  fancy  men,  its  fast  men,  its  witty  men,  and  its 
stupid  and  silly  men,  through  all  the  varieties  of  the 
Dii  majo7'u?n  et  mi7ioriim  gentium  who  make  up  the  col- 
lege mythology.  It  is  eminently  a  law  unto  itself,  mak- 
ing and  enforcing  such  laws  as  no  other  community 
would  recognize  or  understand ;  laws  which  are  often 
strangely  incongruous  with  the  usually  received  com- 
mandments of  God  and  man.  It  has  standards  of 
character  which  are  peculiar  to  itself,  unlike  those 
which  the  great  world  recognizes,  but  which  are  well 
understood  and  most  efficient  within  its  own  limited 
circle.  It  has  an  intellectual  atmosphere  of  its  own, 
stimulating  to  extraordinary  and  long  continued  labor, 
and  to  austere  self-denial ;  sometimes  unwise  in  the  aims 
and  methods  of  activity  which  it  enforces.  Its  social 
customs,  laws,  and  criteria,  are  the  products  of  its  iso- 
lated and  peculiar  life,  and  are  an  unsolved  mystery 
to  all  other  societies.  Its  ethical  and  religious  life  is 
marked  by  singular  excellences  and  as  striking  incon- 
sistencies and  defects  ;  sometimes  sinking  far  below  the 
rules  and  attainments  of  men  in  other  communities  and 
again  soaring  loftily  above  them.  No  community 
is  swayed  more  completely  by  the  force  of  public  opin- 
ion. In  none  does  public  opinion  solidify  itself  into  so 
compact  and  homogeneous  a  force.     Before  its   power 

8 


170  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

the  settled  judgments  of  individual  conviction  are  of- 
ten abandoned  or  overborne,  the  sacred  associations  of 
childhood  are  relaxed,  the  plainest  dictates  of  truth  and 
honor  are  misinterpreted  or  defied.  Notwithstanding 
the  unnatural  virulence  of  the  morbid  epidemics  with 
which  this  community  is  occasionally  visited,  and  the 
steady  operation  of  certain  endemic  tendencies  to  evil, 
justice  requires  us  to  assert  that  the  prevailing  influ- 
ences are  not  only  healthful  but  are  eminently  vital- 
izing. In  no  community  of  persons  of  immature  age 
is  the  intellect  more  likely  to  be  efficiently  awakened, 
and  on  the  whole  to  be  more  wisely  directed,  than  in 
this  commonwealth.  In  none  is  real  merit  more  likely 
to  be  discerned,  or  when  discerned  is  it  more  gener- 
ously acknowledged.  In  no  community  are  the  facti- 
tious distinctions  of  life,  as  of  wealth,  birth,  and  man- 
ners, of  so  little  account  in  comparison  with  intellect, 
generosity,  and  openheartedness.  In  none  do  the  rich 
and  poor  meet  together  oli  terms  more  honorable  to  the 
rich  and  more  acceptable  to  the  poor,  than  on  the  arena 
dignified  by  the  presence  of  earnest  intellectual  labor, 
and  cheered  by  the  sunshine  of  youthful  generosity. 
In  none  are  shallowness,  pretension,  and  shams  more 
quickly  discovered  or  treated  widi  a  more  unanimous 
derision.  In  no  community  in  which  young  men  live 
together  are  that  conceit  and  assumption  which  are  as 
natural  to  many  youth  as  teething  is  to  infancy,  more 
effectually  rebuked  and  more  quietly  abandoned.  Even 
the  resident  traditionary  follies  and  sins  of  the  place, 
its  antagonism  against  the  faculty  and  the  law,  the  oc- 
casional frightful  evasions  and  untruth  in  the  acts  and 
words   of  otherwise  honorable  and  honest  students  in 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  171 

their  dealings  with  the  government,  and  the  jealousies 
and  feuds  between  classes  and  factions,  are  many  of 
them  exaggerated  and  perverted  excellencies.  Even  the 
very  "  failings"  of  college  students,  however  inexcusa- 
ble and  injurious  they  are,  may  be  truly  said  to  "  lean 
to  virtue's  side." 

In  respect  to  the  moral  dangers  which  attend  a  resi- 
dence in  this  peculiar  community,  very  superficial  and 
very  unjust  impressions  prevail.  Our  opinion  is,  and 
we  believe  it  will  be  confirmed  by  the  most  extended 
observation  and  the  most  accurate  statistics,  that  there 
is  no  community  in  which  this  preeminently  critical  pe- 
riod of  life  can  be  spent  with  greater  safety  than  it 
can  in  the  college.  If  needful  pains  were  taken  to  de- 
scribe the  dangers  and  enumerate  the  failures  which  be- 
fall an  equal  number  of  young  men  selected  from  fam- 
ilies of  similar  conditions  in  life,  whether  at  home  or 
among  strangers,  whether  passing  their  youth  as  farm- 
ers or  mechanics,  as  clerks  or  students,  it  would  be 
found  that  the  moral  results  alone  would  be  in  favor  of 
the  life  at  a  well-regulated  college.  Many  of  the  dan- 
gers and  evils  of  the  college  are  eminently  short-lived, 
being  quickly  ended  by  their  own  excess  and  extrava- 
gance ;  many  are  abandoned,  outgrown,  or  repressed  by 
means  of  the  very  intensity  and  publicity  which  they 
assume.  Many  of  them  are  the  results  of  artificial 
crises,  somewhat  like  those  which  are  superinduced  by 
a  physician,  for  the  expulsion  of  morbific  matter. 
Many  of  them  are  laughed  at  and  frowned  down  by  the 
better  sense  and  the  maturer  experience  of  the  older 
students  and  the  more  advanced  classes.  It  is  noticed 
in  some  of  our  colleo:es — and  we  believe  it  is  true  of 


172  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

many — that  some  of  the  lower  vices  and  the  more  de- 
grading indulgences  which  are  incident  to  earHer  youth, 
are  less  prevalent  among  the  older  than  among  the 
younger  classes,  as  the  natural  result  of  the  public  and 
private  influences  exerted  by  the  college  community, 
apart  from  any  special  moral  or  religious  improvement. 
The  consideration  of  the  common  life  of  the  college 
is  essential  to  a  just  estimate  of  its  importance.  With- 
out it  the  college  can  neither  be  understood  nor  appre- 
ciated. It  is  a  true  and  pregnant  saying,  "  You  send 
your  child  to  the  schoolmaster,  but  'tis  the  schoolboys 
who  educate  him."  The  studies,  the  systems  and  meth- 
ods of  teaching,  the  knowledge  and  skill  of  the  in- 
structors, do  not  constitute  the  whole  of  the  educating 
influences  of  the  college.  Often  they  do  not  furnish 
half  of  those  influences  which  are  most  eflicient,  which 
are  longest  remembered,  or  which  are  most  highly  val- 
ued. It  is  true  that  without  the  first  the  second  could 
not  be  exerted,  for  they  could  not  exist.  The  more  ob- 
vious and  essential  elements  of  the  college  also  exert 
upon  its  common  life  a  positive  and  formative  influence. 
They  do  not  merely  serve  as  the  necessary  nucleus 
around  which  the  crystalline  material  is  gathered  in 
bright  and  beauteous  order,  but  they  act  as  living  germs 
which  shoot  vitalizing  influences  through  the  organized 
body.  But  they  are  not  themselves  the  whole  of  the 
body,  nor  do  they  include  all  the  forces  which  it  has  at 
command.  Very  many  even  of  those  college  graduates 
who  have  turned  to  the  best  account  all  the  resources 
which  their  alma  mater  could  furnish,  feel  themselves 
quite  as  much  indebted  to  the  educating  influences  of 
its  community  for  the  awakening  and  direction  of  their 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 73 

energies,  as  to  their  studi-es  or  their  instructors.  The 
examples  of  successful  effort  which  are  constantly  pres- 
entc  the  inspiration  that  may  be  derived  from  the  strik- 
ing achievements  witnessed  in  others,  the  kind  words 
of  a  classmate  or  a  college-mate,  the  encouragement 
spoken  at  a  critical  moment,  the  prevailing  estimate  of 
literary  and  artistic  tastes  above  the  vulgar  aspira- 
tions after  wealth  and  power  which  is  inwrought  into 
the  very  fibres  of  the  soul  of  every  genuine  college 
alumnus,  his  pronounced  aversion  to  all  sorts  of  Philis- 
tinism— the  inbreathing  for  years  of  a  stimulating  at- 
mosphere that  is  fragrant  with  "  sweetness"  and  per- 
vaded by  "light;"  these, — together  with  the  warmth 
of  college  friendships,  the  earnestness  of  college  rival- 
ries, the  revelations  of  character,  the  manifestations  of 
growth,  the  issues  of  villainy  and  passion  in  retribution 
and  shame,  the  rewards  of  perseverance  and  fidelity  in 
triumph  and  honor — all  make  the  college  world  to  the 
student  to  be  full  of  excitement  in  its  progress  and  to 
abound  in  the  warmest  recollections  in  the  retrospect. 
The  men  whom  the  student  knew  so  thoroughly  in  col- 
lege become  ever  afterwards  the  representatives  and 
types  of  all  other  men  ;  the  incidents  which  there  oc- 
curred are  examples  of  all  other  events ;  its  loves  and 
its  hatreds,  its  triumphs  and  defeats  are  those  by  which 
he  ever  afterwards  reads  and  interprets  society  and  lit- 
erature, politics  and  history. 

The  intellectual  stimulus  and  education  which  are 
furnished  by  the  college  community  are  of  a  kind  which 
neither  circumstances  nor  instructors  can  impart.  They 
are  eminently  a  self-education.  Most  of  the  efforts  at 
self-improvement    which   are    prompted    by   the    inde- 


174  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

pendent  movements  of  one's  fellows  are  zealously  pros- 
ecuted because  they  are  self-enforced.  They  fall  in 
with  the  voluntary  activities  of  awakening  manhood 
and  of  dawning  responsibility.  They  train  to  the  dig- 
nity and  duty  of  self-culture.  The  studies  which  they 
directly  foster  and  inspire  are  preeminently  literary  and 
rhetorical  studies,  because  these  studies  are  more  de- 
pendent on  individual  tastes  and  individual  culture,  and 
from  their  very  nature  cannot  be  successfully  prescribed 
nor  enforced  in  the  regular  curriculum.  Studies  and 
ambitions  of  this  sort  are  indeed  not  unfrequently 
irregular,  desultory,  and  unwise.  They  often  inter- 
fere very  seriously  with  the  thorough  mastery  of  the 
curriculum  of  the  college.  Excessive  attention  to  them 
sometimes  weakens  the  intellectual  energies,  induces 
bad  intellectual  habits,  depraves  the  taste,  and  perverts 
the  judgment.  But  with  all  these  abatements,  the  in- 
tellectual excitement  and  guidance  which  are  indirectly 
furnished  from  the  community  of  fellow  students  are  to 
many  a  man  the  influences  of  all  others  which  leave 
the  strongest  impression,  because  it  is  with  these  that 
he  connects  the  first  consciousness  of  awakening  power, 
the  earliest  sense  of  independent  activity  and  the  be- 
ginnings of  a  steady  course  of  self-culture.  Some  book 
recommended  by  a  fellow  student,  some  incident  casu- 
ally occurring  in  the  varied  course  of  college  experi- 
ence, some  conversation  of  a  wise  and  faithful  adviser, 
some  achievement  of  a  classmate  or  friend,  is  remem- 
bered as  a  starting  or  turning  point  in  the  intellectual 
life. 

Nor  are  the   social  influences  less   important  in  the 
formation  of  the  character  and  the  furnishing  of  the 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PbBLIC.  1 75 

man  with  the  beginnings  of  all  kinds  of  practical 
knowledge.  It  may  be  said  that  the  college  world  is  a 
narrow  and  peculiar  world,  is  artificial  and  factitious  in 
many  of  its  workings,  is  greatly  unlike  the  larger  and 
freer  world  of  mankind,  and  is  therefore  incapable  of 
serving  as  a  preparation  for  the  actual  life  for  which  it 
must  so  soon  be  exchanged.  Whatever  ma}^  be  its  dis- 
advantages in  these  respects,  the  advantages  which  it 
brings  are  manifold.  The  intimacies  are  most  unre- 
served, the  opportunities  for  the  study  and  interpreta- 
tion of  character  are  various  and  long  continued.  It  is 
at  this  period  of  life  that  the  man  is,  if  ever,  prover- 
bially frank  and  transparent,  open  and  fearless.  Dur- 
ing its  progress  the  character  rapidly  undergoes  many 
transformations,  which  are  open  to  the  inspection  of 
one's  fellows  and  are  often  forced  upon  their  attention. 
The  leisure  and  curiosity  of  this  morning  of  life,  to- 
gether with  the  zest  with  which  its  novel  experiences 
of  research  and  discovery  are  enjoyed,  all  contribute  to 
give  energy  and  interest  to  this  study  of  character. 

This  study  of  character  must  involve  the  constant 
exercise  of  ethical  judgments  and  the  training  of  the 
moral  powers.  That  there  are  peculiar  exposures  and 
dangers  of  a  practical  sort  from  this  excited  and  one- 
sided life  in  an  isolated  and  self-sufficing  community, 
cannot  be  denied.  That  not  a  few  are  misled  by  its 
special  temptations,  not  merely  nor  chiefly  to  vices  and 
prodigalities  of  a  grosser  sort,  but  to  a  refined  and 
subtle  insensibility  to  good  that  is  more  insidious  and 
not  less  really  evil,  will  be  confessed  by  many.  That 
the  moral  powers  often  become  paralyzed  in  some  of 
their  functions  and  incapable  either  of  right  judgments 


176  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

or  active  feelings  on  certain  classes  of  ethical  ques- 
tions, is  one  of  those  ever  recurring  enigmas  and 
scandals  that  puzzle  and  offend  the  looker-on.  To  the 
guardian  and  instructor  of  one  or  many  victims  of 
these  abnormal  ethical  paroxysms,  the  question  will  of- 
ten present  itself  whether  he  ought  to  be  more  vexed  or 
amused  at  these  instances  of  suspended  animation  in 
the  conscience.  And  yet  with  all  these  biasing  and 
perverting  influences,  it  is  found  to  be  true  that  the  ob- 
servations and  experiences  of  college  life  are  often  em- 
inently effective  in  educating  and  quickening  the  con- 
science and  in  awakening  and  directing  the  moral 
faculty.  The  failures  and  derelictions  of  college  life, 
and  even  the  occasional  paralysis  of  the  conscience  of 
which  we  have  spoken,  may  serve  most  important  uses 
as  warnings  from  similar  repetitions.  The  moral  les- 
sons of  college  life  are  indeed  sometimes  learned  at  a 
painful  and  bitter  cost.  But  similar  experiences  are 
not  uncommon  with  youtlr  in  every  situation  of  life. 
Perhaps  under  no  circumstances  can  they  be  made  with 
a  more  wholesome  and  permanent  ethical  effect. 

The  religious  influences  of  this  common  life  should 
not  be  omitted.  We  suppose  that  the  college  is  a  truly 
Christian  institution,  so  far  as  the  instructions  and  the 
faith  of  its  teachers  are  concerned.  There  are  not  a 
few  reasons  why  the  public  life  of  such  an  institution 
should  be  favorable  to  earnest  religious  thought  and  a 
positive  religious  faith.  The  life  of  the  student  is  nec- 
essarily intellectual  and  reflective  ;  whatever  subjects 
are  studied,  the  study  of  them  involves  intellectual  ef- 
fort and  studious  attention.  During  the  period  of  col- 
lege life  the  earnest  mind  often  encounters  those  ques- 


AND   THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 77 

tionings  which  require  a  decided  answer,  and  it  awakes 
to  thoughts  which  cannot  be  repressed.  It  is  haunted 
by  the  presence  of  mysterious  reaUties  which  cannot  be 
dismissed.  The  prospect  of  coming  manhood  with  the 
responsibihties  of  individual  character  and  of  inde- 
pendent Hfe,  at  once  sobers  and  elevates.  It  often 
happens  that  many  nearly  allied  as  friends  and  class- 
mates, are  moved  to  similar  earnest  emotions  and  to 
like  searching  inquiries.  The  common  sympathies  of  a 
familiar  circle  thus  occupied  quicken  the  better  emo- 
tions and  favor  the  happiest  results.  The  temptations 
in  college  to  sensualism  and  to  unbelief  are  manifold  ; 
but  so  are  the  influences  which  favor  an  earnest  and 
zealous  Christian  life.  The  number  of  those  is  not 
small  who  look  back  to  the  common  life  of  the  college 
as  the  beginning  or  the  helper  of  the  higher  life  of  the 
Christian.  Were  the  religious  influences  that  proceed 
from  the  colleges  of  this  country  to  be  withdrawn  or 
sensibly  diminished,  it  would  seem  that  the  Gospel 
itself  might  almost  cease  to  be  acknowledged, — so 
manifold  are  the  relations  of  each  generation  of  col- 
lege students  to  the  faith  and  life  of  the  whole  Christian 
Church. 

The  effects  of  these  varied  intellectual,  social,  eth- 
ical, and  religious  influences  are  so  powerful  and  salu- 
tary that  it  may  well  be  questioned  whether  the  educa- 
tion which  they  impart  does  not  of  itself  more  than 
repay  the  time  and  money  which  it  costs,  even  to  those 
idlers  at  college  who  derive  from  their  residence  little 
or  nothing  more  than  these  accidental  or  incidental  ad- 
vantages. The  constant  companionship  with  the  mem- 
bers of  a  community  professedly  devoted  to  intellectual 


lyS  THE    AMERICAN    COELEGES 

pursuits  and  elevated  by  literary  tastes,  the  constantly 
renewed  interest  in  those  incidents  which  will  ever 
break  forth  from  its  exuberant  and  irrepressible  life,  the 
pressure  of  its  necessary  restraints,  the  countless  les- 
sons of  good  which  cannot  be  unheeded  even  by  the 
most  thoughtless  and  perverse,  elevate  the  life  of  the 
merest  laggard  and  drone  at  college  immeasurably 
above  the  life  of  the  luxurious  do-nothing  who  haunts 
the  saloons,  promenades  the  streets,  and  lounges  at  the 
concerts  and  theatres  of  a  large  city,  or  who  drones 
away  the  animal,  most  likely  the  sensual,  life  of  a  rich 
man's  son  in  the  country. 

Such  idlers  sometimes  awake  to  manliness  and  to 
duty  when  they  leave  college.  However  heavy  may  be 
the  burden  which  they  carry  through  life  as  the  result 
of  folly  and  waste,  they  rarely  fail  to  have  stored  up  an 
abundant  stock  of  rich  experiences  as  well  as  of  pleas- 
ant recollections.  To  many  who  persistently  neglect 
the  college  studies,  the  college  life  is  anything  rather 
than  a  total  loss.  Even  those  who  sink  downward  with 
no  recovery,  find  their  descent  retarded  by  the  associa- 
tions of  dignity  and  self-respect  with  which  their  previ- 
ous access  to  culture  has  enriched  them. 

We  have  dwelt  somewhat  at  length  upon  these  features 
of  the  college  as  preliminary  to  the  question.  Whether 
it  is  on  the  whole  desirable  that  such  influences  should 
be  cherished  and  fostered,  and  how  far  any  proposed 
changes  in  the  college  system  would  be  likely  seriously 
to  impair  their  beneficent  influence  ? 

Is  it  desirable  that  this  peculiar  life  of  the  college 
should  be  retained  and  fostered  or  should  it  be  cur- 
tailed and  crippled  ?     We  reply  with  an  indignant  defi- 


17 


'I 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  1 79 

ance  of  all  sorts  of  low  and  high-lived  Philistines,  let 
it  be  retained  !  Let  it  not  only  be  retained  but  let  it 
be  intensified  and  turned  to  far  more  effective  results. 
We  are  sure  that  in  these  answers  we  have  with  us  not 
only  the  warm  hearts,  but  the  sober  convictions  of  all 
classes  of  collegians.  The  experiences  of  the  college 
life  are  too  valuable  and  its  manifold  recollections  are 
too  precious  to  be  sacrificed,  to  satisfy  the  vulgar  preju- 
dices of  envious  illiterates,  and  the  prosaic  theories  of 
Quixotic  reformers.  Whatever  else  is  taken  from  the 
college,  its  associations,  its  friendships,  and  its  inspir- 
ing influences  must  all  remain.  The  low-lived  utili- 
tarianism of  this  money-loving  age  may  grudge  the 
waste  of  a  year  or  two  to  the  youth  who  is  wanted  at 
the  counting  house  or  in  the  field.  The  self-seeking 
rivalships  of  hard-faced  greed  may  scorn  its  generous 
impulses.  The  sharp-faced  and  venal  politician  may 
see  but  little  money  in  its  elections  and  offices.  The 
cold  blooded  realist  may  laugh  at  its  romantic  dreams. 
The  man  of  wide  experience  may  sneer  at  the  inordi- 
nate conceit  and  the  extravagant  expectations  of  the 
great  men  of  the  college  year  or  of  the  college  society 
as  "  carpet-knights  ;"  but  it  still  remains  true  that  there 
is  in  college  life,  with  all  its  ignorance  and  its  romance, 
its  follies  and  its  conceit,  a  well-spring  of  living  waters, 
of  which  these  Gentiles  of  the  outer  court  may  never 
taste,  and  a  sanctuary  into  which  these  inhabitants  of 
Philistia  are  not  worthy  to  be  admitted.  Of  this  liv- 
ing fountain  and  this  hallowed  sanctuary  let  all  the 
initiated  say :  they  shall  ever  be  guarded  by  our  loyal 
arms  as  they  are  hallowed  in  our  best  and  most  gen- 
erous recollections.  Though  the  ignorant  may  despise 
them,  we  know  their  worth,  though  the  vulgar  and  pro- 


l8o  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

saic  may  scorn  and  dishonor  them,  we  who  have  drunk 
of  these  refreshing  waters  and  wandered  in  these  sacred 
shades,  can  never  forget,  because  we  can  never  lose 
their  life-giving  and  ennobling  influences.  To  all  the 
prosaic  arguments  of  educational  reformers  and  the 
passionate  appeals  of  envious  Philistines,  we  lift  up  the 
triumphant  song  of  reply,  "  Gaudea77ius  igitiir  *  *  * 
Pereant  osores,  qiiivis  antihurschius  atqiie  irrisoresJ^ 

We  will  not,  however,  appeal  solely  to  the  feelings  of 
those  who  are  already  convinced,  nor  to  the  unreflect- 
ing preferences  of  those  who  judge  from  their  personal 
experience.  We  think  it  is  susceptible  of  satisfac- 
tory proof  that  in  such  a  country  as  ours,  the  peculiar 
influences  of  the  common  life  of  the  college  are  of  the 
greatest  consequence,  to  deliver  us  from  that  gross  vul- 
garity of  taste  and  superficial  conceit  of  knowlege  to 
which  it  is  especially  exposed.  Among  the  conserva- 
tive and  elevating  influences  which  are  most  efficient  in 
the  promotion  of  general  culture  there  are  few  so  im- 
portant as  the  refining  influences  of  the  college  life.  It 
takes  into  its  organization  a  band  of  young  men,  at  the 
period  of  life  which  is  most  susceptible  of  permanent 
influences — at  the  period  when  they  are  not  too  old  to 
be  easily  moulded,  and  not  too  young  to  lose  the  forms 
into  which  they  are  shaped.  It  isolates  them  from  the 
world.  It  surrounds  and  permeates  their  very  being 
with  the  intense  and  quickening  atmosphere  of  a  com- 
munity of  youths  slightly  older  than  themselves,  who 
are  already  at  home  in  the  place,  and  therefore  masters 
of  the  situation,  by  means  of  a  public  opinion  as  overpow- 
ering as  heat  and  as  searching  as  light.  These  strangers 
are  by  natural  attractions  and  repulsions  drawn  closely 
to  one  another  as  allies  and  friends,  and  before  they 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  iSl 

are  aware  they  begin  to  understand  the  sacred  import 
of  the  words  "class"  and  "classmate."  Within  the 
class,  like  soon  finds  its  like,  and  friendships  are 
speedily  formed  on  the  basis  of  mutual  sympathy 
which  are  so  closely  cemented  under  the  varied  experi- 
ences of  the  college  as  to  continue  unbroken  for  life. 
The  pursuits  of  this  community  are  professedly  intel- 
lectual. The  thoughts  and  opinions  of  each  of  its 
members  are  occupied  more  or  less  predominantly 
with  intellectual  themes.  The  labors  and  anxieties, 
the  strifes  and  victories,  the  discussions  of  persons  and 
things,  the  loves  and  the  hostilities,  turn  chiefly  upon 
subjects  of  an  elevated  character.  For  four  consecu- 
tive years,  beginning  as  boys  and  ending  as  men,  the 
members  of  this  community  make  a  common  experi- 
ence, with  interruptions  frequent  and  long  enough  to 
give  greater  zest  to  their  peculiar  excitements.  This 
life  has  conventionalities  and  factitious  distinctions  of 
its  own,  but  they  are  grounded  on  no  such  false  and  su- 
perfiicial  reasons  as  are  those  of  the  great  world  with- 
out. They  are  far  more  just,  more  honest,  more  saga- 
cious, and  more  generous  than  the  distinctions  of  that 
coarser  world.  True  manhood  in  intellect  and  charac- 
ter is  in  no  community  so  sagaciously  discerned  and  so 
honestly  honored  as  in  this  commufiity.  Pretension 
and  shams  are  in  none  more  speedily  and  cordially  de- 
tected and  exposed.  Whether  displayed  in  manners  or 
in  intellectual  efforts,  conceit  is  rebuked  and  effectually 
repressed.  Modest  merit  and  refined  tastes  are  appre- 
ciated, first  by  the  select  few  and  then  by  the  less  dis- 
cerning many.  Each  individual  spectator  of  the  goings 
on  of  this  active  life  is  learning  intellectual  and  moral 
lessons  which  he  cannot  forget  if  he  would,  and  which 


l82  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

he  would  not  if  he  could,  and  he  comes  away  Mdth  a 
rich  freight  of  the  most  salutary  experiences  of  culture 
in  his  tastes,  his  estimates  of  character,  his  judgments 
of  life,  as  well  as  of  positive  achievements  in  literary 
taste  and  power. 

Let  any  reflecting  man  think  for  a  moment  of  the 
kind  of  education  which  society  furnishes  to  a  great  ex- 
tent in  this  country,  apart  from  these  higher  influences. 
Let  him  reflect  on  the  trickery  of  business,  the  jobbing 
of  politicians,  the  slang  of  newspapers,  the  vulgarity  of 
fashion,  the  sensationalism  of  popular  books,  the  shal- 
lowness and  cant  that  dishonor  the  pulpit  and  defile 
worship,  and  he  may  reasonably  rejoice  that  there  is 
one  community  which  for  a  considerable  period  takes 
into  its  keeping  many  of  the  most  susceptible  and  most 
promising  of  our  youth,  to  impart  to  them  better  tastes, 
higher  aims,  and,  above  all,  to  teach  them  to  despise 
all  sorts  of  intellectual  and  moral  shams.  Whatever 
overweening  importance  the  college  student  may  attach 
to  his  own  artificial  life,  with  its  factitious  distinctions 
and  its  one-sided  tastes,  it  is  at  least  satisfactory  to 
known  that  what  he  values  and  rejoices  in  is  not  in  the 
direction  of  the  ignoble,  the  selfish,  the  pretentious, 
and  the  trickish  ;  that  he  has  been  taught  to  honor 
what  is  true,  solid,  and  permanent,  and  perhaps  brings 
away  from  the  scene  of  his  discipline  refined  tastes  for 
the  beautiful  in  literature  and  art,  which  shall  adorn 
his  own  life  and  brighten  that  of  others.  Were  we 
to  tear  out  of  our  American  life  the  civilizing  and  cul- 
turing  influences  which  proceed  from  college  residence 
and  college  associations,  we  should  do  much  to  vul- 
garize and  degrade  it.  If  we  vulgarize  and  degrade 
the  life  that  is  so  depressed  by  materialistic  tendencies, 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  183 

and  beset  by  grosser  temptations,  we  shall  certainly  de- 
moralize it.  We  cannot  safely  dispense  with  a  single 
agency  which  tends  to  elevate  and  refine  this  life,  least 
of  all  with  an  agency  which  has  been  so  conspicuous  in 
its  history,  and  been  so  closely  interwoven  with  all  the 
subtle  forces  of  its  better  manifestations.  It  is  enough 
for  us  to  be  able  to  assert  that  thousands  of  the  noblest 
men  who  stand  foremost  in  the  ranks  of  social  and  pro- 
fessional life,  would  be  forward  to  acknowledge  that 
they  are  indebted  to  the  cultivating  influences  of  col- 
lege friendships  and  college  associations,  for  the  germs 
of  their  best  principles,  their  noblest  aspirations  and 
their  most  refined  tastes. 

With  the  views  which  we  have  expressed  there  are 
many  who  do  not  sympathize.  Not  a  few  regard  the 
peculiar  influences  of  college  life  as  anything  but  re- 
fining, as  tending  rather  to  barbarism  than  to  civiliza- 
tion, to  grossness  and  conceit  rather  than  to  refinement 
and  modest  self-estimation.  To  such  we  have  no  further 
arguments  to  ofler.  Whether  they  are  honestly  or  dishon- 
estly ignorant  and  unjust,  they  are  hopelessly  irreclaim- 
able. With  those  who  do  nothing  but  rail,  it  is  useless  to 
try  to  reason.  There  are  others  who  propose  changes 
which  would  materially  modify  the  whole  operation  of 
the  common  life  of  the  college.  They  would  remove  or 
introduce  features  which  would  weaken  or  set  aside  the 
influences  which  we  have  enumerated.  They  would  do 
so  with  the  express  design  of  avoiding  some  of  its  al- 
leged social  evils,  or  with  the  desire  indirectly  to  ac- 
complish other  important  ends. 


184  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


VIII. 

THE  DORMITORY  SYSTEM. 

The  first  of  these  changes  which  we  notice  is  the 
abandonment  of  the  dormitory  system.  This  has  been 
seriously  urged  by  not  a  few  of  the  friends  of  higher 
education  as  a  most  desirable  improvement  in  the  col- 
lege economy..  The  reasons  adduced  in  its  favor  are, 
that  if  the  students  should  live  in  lodgings  they  would 
be  brought  within  the  amenities  and  restraints  of  the 
family,  and  be  prevented  from  contracting  the  exclusive 
and  perverse  esprit  de  corps^  which  is  thought  to  be  the 
curse  of  colleges — that  they  would  live,  and  feel  and 
think,  and  act  more  as  other  human  beings  do,  and 
less  like  that  particular  variety  of  the  human  species 
which  is  cloistered  within  the  walls  of  a  college  and  se- 
cluded from  the  ordinary  influences  of  human  society. 
The  expensiveness  to  the  college  of  providing  and 
keeping  in  repair  a  large  number  of  dormitory  build- 
ings is  also  insisted  on,  as  well  as  the  duty  and  desira- 
bleness of  appropriating  the  money  required  for  these 
purposes  to  objects  that  are  more  properly  educational. 
It  is  often  asked,  "why  invest  so  much  money  in  brick  and 
mortar,  /.  ^.,  in  houses  for  students  to  dwell  in,  when  so 
much  is  needed  for  salaries,  for  endowments,  for  prizes, 
for  books,  and  apparatus  ?  It  is  time  that  the  system  of 
cloisters   and  quadrangles,  inherited  from  other  times, 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  185 

should  be  abandoned  with  the  changes  required  by 
modern  life.  More  than  half  of  the  barbarism  and  ab- 
surdity of  college  life  would  cease  if  the  students  were 
distributed  generally  throughout  the  community  and  in 
a  certain  sense  were  members  of  its  families,  subject  to 
their  restraints  and  elevated  by  their  refining  influence." 
To  these  questions  and  arguments  the  following  con- 
siderations are  pertinent.  First  of  all,  the  advantages 
which  it  is  thought  would  follow  from  the  distribution 
of  students  in  families  cannot  be  realized.  It  is  not 
easy  to  find,  even  in  a  ver}^  large  community,  a  sufficient 
number  of  families  which  would  at  once  be  competent 
and  willing  to  exert  a  wholesome  influence  over  the 
students  even  of  a  small  college.  Families  which  are 
independent  in  respect  to  income  are  not  willing  to  re- 
ceive lodgers,  least  of  all  students,  unless  they  as- 
sert some  claim  of  acquaintance  or  friendship.  If  the 
families  are  dependent  upon  the  students  for  a  part  or 
the  whole  of  their  living,  the  students  will  control  so 
many,  either  by  a  direct  or  indirect  influence,  that  they 
cannot  be  relied  upon  for  restraint,  except  against  the 
grossest  excesses,  and  not  always  against  them.  The 
experiment  has  been  tried  sufficiently  often  to  be  hard- 
ened into  an  intractable  fact,  that  students  who  reside 
in  the  most  faithful  and  conscientious  families  *often 
succeed  in  making  them  their  allies  rather  than  their 
guardians  and  guides,  and  that  when  a  crisis  or  conflict 
arises  between  the  students  and  the  faculty,  the  families 
in  which  any  considerable  portion  of  them  reside,  even 
the  best  and  most  reasonable  families,  more  usually 
side  with  the  students  than  with  the  faculty.  If  the 
offense  or  custom  of  the  students  is  not  very  serious  in 


1 86  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

its  immediate  consequences,  the  interference  of  the 
faculty  is  complained  of  as  officious  and  unreasonable. 
Even  if  it  is  plainly  mischievous  to  the  community  and 
dangerous  to  life  and  limb,  if  it  has  often  been  forbid- 
den and  punished  and  is  yet  pertinaciously  persisted  in, 
the  necessary  discipline  of  the  college  is  often  greatly 
weakened  by  an  antagonistic  or  at  least  an  unsympa- 
thizing  feeling  in  the  families  in  which  many  students 
reside.  '  It  has  almost  passed  into  a  proverb,  that  when 
a  college  is  situated  in  a  village  even  of  considerable 
size,  the  college  controls  the  public  sentiment  of  the 
community,  and  the  faculty  are  compelled  to  contend 
against  the  public  opinion  of  both  village  and  college 
united.  It  is  often  the  case  in  a  much  larger  commu- 
nity that  the  families  in  which  a  few  students  reside,  or 
with  whom  they  visit,  are  strongly  moved  by  their  rep- 
resentations and  their  prejudices  to  a  not  inconsidera- 
ble excitement  in  a  direction  which  is  anything  but  fa- 
vorable to  the  order  of  the'  college  or  the  welfare  of  the 
students  themselves.  The  restraints  and  refinements 
of  family  life  should  not  be  expected,  for  they  cannot 
be  realized  in  a  large  community  of  students,  except 
by  those  collegians  who  reside  at  their  own  homes  in  a 
large  city.  It  may  be  questioned  in  respect  to  these 
students,  and  in  respect  to  all  who  can  reside  at  their 
homes  when  the  college  is  situated  in  their  own  city 
or  village,  whether  they  do  not  lose  more  by  the 
absence  of  the  salutary  excitements  and  educating  re- 
straints of  the  common  life  of  the  college,  than  they 
gain  t)y  the  restraints  and  refinements  of  their  own  fam- 
ilies. This  leads  us  to  observe  that  the  residence  in 
dormitories  by  a  very  considerable  part  of  the  students 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  187 

is  absolutely  essential  to  any  vigorous  and  definite  com- 
mon life.  This  is  foremost  among  the  advantages  of 
the  dormitory  system.  If  the  maintenance  of  such  a 
common  life  is  desirable,  then  dormitories  are  essential. 
The  students,  in  order  to  enter  into  a  common  fellow- 
ship, must  have  ready  access  to  each  other's  society  on 
an  equal  footing.  They  must  occupy  the  same  prem- 
ises by  day  and  night,  so  that  they  can  see  one  another 
under  every  variety  of  circumstances.  They  must  chat 
and  talk  with  one  another  as  they  walk  and  as  they 
lounge.  They  must  be  able  to  discuss  the  topics  of 
graver  and  of  lighter  interest,  the  politics  of  the  coun- 
try and  the.  politics  of  the  college  ;  the  character  of  the 
leading  statesmen  of  the  time,  and  the  character  of  the 
leading  men  of  their  class  and  college  ;  the  literature  of 
ancient  and  modern  times  and  the  prominent  writers  of 
their  own  circle  ;  the  last  lesson,  the  last  lecture,  the 
last  boat  race,  and  the  last  party  ;  they  must  be  able  to 
report  and  circulate  the  latest  joke,  the  latest  news,  and 
the  latest  canard.  If  college  students  are  distributed 
in  lodgings  throughout  the  village  or  city  they  will  form 
sets  and  associate  in  cliques,  which,  the  more  intimate 
and  exclusive  they  are,  are  likely  to  become  more  nar- 
rowing, but  they  cannot  partake  of  a  general  public 
life  with  its  manifold  cross  and  counter  currents,  its 
checks  and  counter  checks,  the  influence  of  which  upon 
the  plastic  minds  of  active  minded  and  sagacious  youth 
is  liberalizing  in  an  eminent  degree. 

The  dormitory  system  gratifies  the  student's  desire 
of  independence.  It  fosters  that  feeling  of  self-reliance 
which  is  suitable  for  his  time  of  life,  which  cannot  and 
ought  not  to  be  repressed.     At  the  same  time  it  tempers 


l88  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

and  tones  it  down  by  the  manifold  restraints  of  the  com- 
munity in  which  he  dwells.  At  the  age  when  a  boy  en- 
ters college  it  is  usually  time  for  him  to  be  released  from 
the  petty  and  minute  oversight  of  the  domestic  house- 
hold and  to  be  thrown  somewhat  upon  himself.  "  The 
wise  instructor,"  says  Emerson,  "  will  press  this  point 
of  securing  to  the  young  soul,  in  the  disposition  of  time 
and  the  arrangements  of  living,  periods  and  habits  of 
solitude.  The  high  advantage  of  university  life  is  often 
the  mere  mechanical  one,  we  may  call  it,  of  a  separate 
chamber  and  fire,  which  parents  will  allow  the  boy, 
without  hesitation,  at  Cambridge,  but  do  not  think  need- 
ful at  home." 

At  this  period  of  life  he  must  in  some  form  or  other 
make  the  experiment,  which  is  inevitable  for  all,  of  pass- 
ing from  the  restraints  of  the  family  among  those  of  the 
great  community  of  men.  He  makes  it  under  peculiar 
advantages,  to  which  are  incident  special  but  not  unde- 
sirable perils.  He  cannot  be  effectually  nor  can  he  be 
advantageously  subjected  to  the  restraints  of  another 
family  than  his  own.  It  is  not  desirable  that  he  should 
be  restricted  to  the  uncertain  chances  and  the  narrow- 
ing influences  of  a  private  and  exclusive  clique.  It  is 
far  better,  and  far  more  safe  that  he  should  be  cast  upon 
the  common  life  of  a  college  which  is  properly  restrained 
by  skillful  discipline,  which  is  guarded  by  wise  super- 
vision and  invigorated  by  a  healthful  ethical  and  relig- 
ious life. 

Residence  in  dormitories  is  also  morally  safer  than 
the  distribution  of  students  in  lodgings.  Should  it  be 
conceded  that  it  is  attended  by  certain  peculiar  tempta- 
tions, it  is  also  attended  with  certain  more  than  coun- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  189 

terbalancing  advantages,  so  far  as  it  subjects  the  stu- 
dent to  a  more  direct  and  ready  supervision  and  brings 
him  Avithin  the  reach  of  healthful  public  sentiment. 
Residence  in  lodgings  withdraws  the  student  from  su- 
pervision and  opens  abundant  opportunities  for  secret 
mischief  and  gross  vice.  In  those  colleges  in  which 
the  students  are  largely  distributed  in  lodgings  it  is 
notorious  that  the  grossest  outrages  against  decency  are 
plotted  and  executed  in  apartments  which  are  remote 
from  the  inspection  and  interference  of  the  college  offi- 
cers, and  that  the  most  deplorable  examples  of  aban- 
doned sensualism  and  sin  are  more  frequent  among 
those  who  hide  themselves  in  remote  and  obscure  habi- 
tations that  they  may  indulge  themselves  in  secret  or 
undetected  vice.  Whatever  may  be  said  and  said  with 
truth  of  the  energy  of  temptation  and  the  facilities  to 
sin  which  inevitably  arise  in  a  congregated  mass  of  ex- 
citable and  passionate  youths,is  offset  by  what  may  be 
said  with  equal  truth  of  the  restraining  and  elevating 
influences  which  such  a  community  develops  within 
itself  when  its  sentiment  is  projDcrly  directed  and  rein- 
forced. Residence  in  a  dormitory  is  less  expensive 
than  residence  in  lodgings,  and  is  therefore,  in  a  large 
institution,  absolutely  necessary,  unless  such  an  institu- 
tion is  content  to  be  a  college  for  the  rich  ;  which  wou!d 
involve  a  great  calamity  for  both  rich  and  poor.  It  is 
said  that  the  college  is  not  obliged  to  furnish  lodging 
at  a  rate  below  that  which  the  ordinary  and  natural  de- 
mand would  justify.  We  reply  by  two  considerations. 
First,  the  college  can  furnish  apartments  in  public  dor- 
mitories at  a  cheaper  rate  than  private  parties  will  do 
it,  even  without  loss  to  itself ;  and  second,  the  college 


IQO 


THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


may  as  properly  furnish  room  rent  as  tuition  to  its  pu- 
pils at  less  than  remunerative  rates  to  itself.  But  it  is 
notorious  that  the  instruction  is  furnished  at  less  than 
half  its  cost,  to  both  the  rich  and  the  poor.  The 
American  colleges  in  their  theory  and  administration 
are  all  beneficiary  institutions.  As  long  as  they  remain 
such,  it  follows  that  public  lodgings  should  be  furnished 
either  at  comparatively  high  rates,  because  the  colleges 
can  do  it  more  advantageously  to  the  students,  or  at 
rates  which  are  lower  because  they  are  beneficiary. 

Public  dormitories  may  and  should  be  made  more 
convenient  and  comfortable  than  private  apartments. 
They  may  and  should  be  provided  with  all  the  appli- 
ances of  modern  civilization,  with  water,  gas,  and  heat, 
and  every  other  comfort  which  conduces  to  health  or 
morality,  to  neatness  or  self-respect.  We  have  nothing 
to  offer  in  excuse  or  defense  for  those  dormitories  which 
are  not  so  constructed  and  provided,  except  the  excuse 
or  defense  of  poverty,  and  for  this  the  guardians  and 
officers  are  not  responsible  as  long  as  they  themselves 
suffer  in  common  with  the  students.  But  perhaps  we 
have  delayed  too  long  upon  this  topic,  and  therefore 
proceed  to  another.  We  were  led  to  speak  of  the 
dormitory  in  connection  with  the  common  life  of  the 
college. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I9I 


IX. 

THE   CLASS  SYSTEM. 

To  this  general  topic  we  again  return  and  obser\'e 
that  the  class  systej?t  is  essential  to  an  efficient  and  en- 
ergetic common  college  life.  The  class  is  the  organic 
centre,  or  rather  one  of  the  organic  centres,  the  combi- 
nation of  which  constitutes  the  college  into  an  organic 
whole.  Indeed,  we  do  not  see  how  an  American  col- 
lege without  fixed  classes  can  have  an  efficient  common 
life.  The  English  universities  find  in  the  separate  col- 
leges the  proper  central  forces,  which  work  together 
into  what  there  is  of  university  feeling  and  university 
life.  The  separate  colleges  are  distinct  communities 
in  separate  buildings.  The  number  of  undergraduates 
in  each  is  so  small,  and  they  are  brought  so  frequently 
and  so  closely  together,  that  though  they  may  difier  in 
age  and  in  acquisitions,  they  make  up  a  separate  family, 
with  family  interests,  family  traditions,  and  family  pride. 
Closeness  and  frequency  of  intercourse,  and  a  sense  of 
family  honor,  with  their  common  relation  to  the  elder 
fellows  who  eat  at  the  sam.e  table  and  lodge  under  the 
same  roof,  unite  them  all  by  many  ties  and  connect  to- 
gether men  of  different  years  and  attainments  by  warm 
and  intimate  friendships.  In  the  American  college,  the 
class  is  the  charmed  circle  within  which  the  individual 
student  contracts  the  most  of  his  friendships,  and  finds 


192  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

his  fondest  and  most  cherished  associations.  The  sen- 
timent of  his  class  is  that  which  influences  him  most 
efficiently,  and  is  to  him  often  the  only  atmosphere  of 
his  social  life.  He  enters  the  college  community  as  a 
timid  and  often  an  uncultivated  novice.  He  meets  with 
a  company  of  strangers  to  one  another  and  strangers  to 
the  place,  its  customs,  and  its  inhabitants.  These  are 
all  supposed  to  have  reached  the  same  grade  of  intel- 
lectual culture  and  are  destined  to  be  associates  and 
competitors  for  four  years  in  the  same  studies  and  the 
same  amusements — in  the  same  relations  and  the  same 
rivalships.  The  members  of  this  community  are  at 
once  united  by  a  sense  of  their  common  strangeness 
to  the  place  and  by  the  mutual  sympathy  which  it  en- 
genders. This  union  is  usually  cemented  by  the  an- 
tagonism in  which  this  newly  formed  society  finds  itself 
with  respect  to  the  superior  classes,  and  is  more  firmly 
fixed  by  the  necessity  of  protection  and  defense.  Its 
members  soon  become  mterested  students  of  each 
other's  powers  and  observers  of  each  other's  progress. 
They  meet  in  the  same  class-room,  or  hear  from  one 
another  of  the  achievements  and  characteristics  of  a 
fe-.v  prominent  individuals.  Not  a  few  of  those  who  at 
first  stand  in  the  foreground  become  less  conspicuous 
as  others  take  their  place,  till  under  the  searching 
tests  of  the  class-room  the  capacity  of  each  man  is  sat- 
isfactorily ascertained,  and  under  the  still  more  saga- 
cious and  nearer  scrutiny  of  youthful  companions,  the 
character  and  temper  as  well  as  the  practical  sense  and 
judgment  of  each  are  thoroughly  tested.  Like  is  at- 
tached to  its  like  and  the  foundations  of  friendships  be- 
gin to  be  laid,  some  of  which  do  not  survive  the  fortmies 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I93 

of  the  college  generation,  while  others  endure  through 
all  the  changes  of  the  earthly  life.  Each  term  has 
experiences  and  a  history  which  is  limited  to  the  class, 
but  in  which  every  member  of  the  class  takes  a  lively 
interest.  Each  college  year  carries  this  community 
through  its  appointed  cycle.  As  the  youthful  excite- 
ments of  the  beginning  are  gradually  sobered  into  the 
more  thoughtful  anticipations  that  gather  around  the 
close,  the  fervor  of  its  friendships  increase  rather  than 
abate,  till  at  the  hour  of  parting  the  class  feeling  be- 
comes more  intense  and  the  ties  of  its  union  are  welded 
into  links  of  iron. 

But  while  the  class  is  the  most  important  society  to 
the  college  student,  the  class  itself  shares  largely  in 
the  sentiment  of  the  college  community,  being  largely 
formed  by  it  and  reacting  upon  it.  The  new^  class  lives 
upon  the  common  life  of  the  whole  body,  while  it  in 
turn  ministers  to  and  modifies  that  life.  It  is,  how- 
ever, as  essential  to  an  efficient  common  life,  as  an  en- 
ergetic and  efficient  local  community,  whether  it  be 
township,  county,  or  state,  is  essential  to  an  energetic 
national  life.  Should  the  class  be  destroyed  or  set 
aside  by  the  substitution  of  the  regime  of  the  university 
for  the  7'egime  of  the  college,  the  energy  and  interest  of 
the  common  life  that  at  present  characterizes  the  Amer- 
ican college,  must  inevitably  go  with  it.  Such  intima^ 
cies  can  only  be  developed  by  the  common  studies  and 
common  interests,  the  common  enjoyments  and  com- 
mon antagonisms  of  a  succession  of  years,  during  the 
most  plastic  age.  If  we  substitute  for  them  such  classes 
as  are  held  together  for  a  few  weeks  or  months  by  com- 
mon attendance  in  the   same   lecture-room,  and  allow 

9 


194  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

these  classes  to  be  broken  up  and  re-formed  of  new  ma- 
terials in  new  combinations,  we  shall  lose  much  of  the 
charm  and  more  of  the  educating  power  of  the  college 
life.  Whatever  this  common  life  is  worth  in  its  mani- 
fold training  of  the  intellect  to  practical  judgments  and 
of  the  heart  to  its  finer  affections,  must  be  sacrificed 
if  the  class  system  is  greatly  weakened  or  practically 
abandoned.  The  value  of  these  influences  is  in  our 
view  another  weighty  argument  in  favor  of  retaining 
fixed  classes,  in  addition  to  those  which  have  already 
been  urged. 

We  ought  not  in  this  connection  to  omit  entirely 
another  prominent  feature  of  the  college  as  a  commu- 
nity, viz.,  the  arrangements  for  culture  and  enjoyment 
furnished  by  the  so-called  college  societies^  secret  and 
open,  larger  and  smaller.  These  societies  are  common 
to  all  the  universities  and  colleges  of  Europe  and  Amer- 
ica. Their  existence  in  some  form  is  a  necessary  out- 
growth of  human  nature.  In  similar  circumstances 
ardent  and  ambitious  young  men  will  devise  some  ex- 
pedient for  self-improvement,  particularly  in  rhetorical 
and  literary  exercises.  The  university  cannot  furnish 
all  the  culture  of  this  sort  which  is  required,  nor  if  it 
could  would  it  be  either  as  acceptable  or  as  efficient  as 
that  which  is  originated  and  managed  by  young  men 
themselves.  It  is  not  surprising  that  in  the  American 
colleges,  animated  as  they  must  be  with  the  practical 
and  independent  spirit  of  the  country  and  sympathizing 
most  warmly  with  every  public  movement,  whether  po- 
litical or  literary,  these  associations  should  have  as- 
sumed great  prominence  and  should  have  exercised  a 
powerful  educating  influence.     The  social   tendencies 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  195 

of  young  men  must  necessarily  lead  to  associations  for 
other  than  exclusively  literary  purposes.  The  clannish 
tendencies  which  result  from  their  ardent  likings  and 
their  violent  antagonisms,  as  well  as  their  newly  devel- 
oped feelings  of  independence  would  tend  to  make 
these  societies  exclusive  and  secret.  We  do  not  pro- 
pose to  discuss  the  general  question  of  the  desirable- 
ness or  the  undesirableness  of  some  associations  of  this 
sort.  It  is  scarcely  open  for  discussion.  They  are  so 
natural  to  young  men,  indeed  to  men  of  all  ages,  as  not 
to  need  defense  or  justification.  Whether  it  is  desira- 
ble that  they  should  be  secret  or  guarded  by  a  mysteri- 
ous reserve,  and  so  invested  with  a  factitious  import- 
ance, admits  of  more  question.  The  love  of  secrecy 
and  reserve  is  too  strong  in  human  nature,  and  espe- 
cially in  boyish  nature,  to  be  easily  thwarted.  We 
doubt  the  expediency  because  we  disbelieve  in  the  pos- 
sibihty  of  destroying  or  preventing  secret  societies. 
That  such  societies  may  be,  and  sometimes  are,  at- 
tended with  very  great  evils,  is  confessed  by  the  great 
majority  of  college  graduates.  Prominent  among  these 
evils  is  the  fostering  of  an  intriguing  and  political 
spirit,  which  is  incongruous  with  the  general  tendencies 
of  college  life  toward  justice  and  generosity ;  and  the 
division  of  the  community  and  the  classes  into  hostile 
factions.  Whatever  excesses  attend  them,  of  late 
hours,  late  suppers,  noisy  demonstrations,  and  convivial 
indulgencies,  should  be  repressed  by  the  good  sense 
and  manlier  spirit  of  the  college  community.  Could 
the  continuity  of  many  of  these  societies,  from  one  col- 
lege year  to  another,  be  broken  up,  the  college  life 
would  be  greatly  ennobled. 


196  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

The  consideration  of  this  subject  suggests  another 
which  is  nearly  akin,  and  that  is  whether  the  arrange- 
ments for  social  life  in  the  college  are  sufficiently  nu- 
merous and  complete.  Is  it  practicable  and  desirable 
that  such  arrangements  should  be  more  attractive  ? 
Some  colleges  have  provided  bowling  alleys  for  exercise 
and  relaxation.  Ought  billiard  rooms  and  club  rooms 
to  be  added  ?  Is  it  desirable  that  public  parlors  should 
be  furnished,  or  places  convenient  for  rendezvous  and 
conversation  ?  Questions  of  this  sort  are  more  easily 
asked  than  answered.  It  is  safe  to  say  that  whatever 
withdraws  the  students  from  resorts  for  eating  and 
drinking  or  gaming — which  may  furnish  facilities  for 
other  excesses — is  so  much  gained  to  academic  manners 
and  morals.  An  accessible  and  cheerful  reading  room, 
amply  furnished  with  the  best  newspapers  and  journals, 
should  be  esteemed  a  necessity,  and  if  it  were  made  at- 
tractive and  tasteful  in  its,  appointments  and  supplied 
with  retiring  rooms  for  conversation,  and  could  also  be 
rigidly  controlled  by  the  rules  of  gentlemanly  etiquette, 
would  be  a  most  desirable  and  useful  agency  in  the 
college  community.  The  tendencies  to  barbarism  and 
roughness  are  manifold  in  the  college.  Jeremy  Taylor 
enumerates  as  among  the  miseries  of  our  human  life, 
that  the  boy  at  a  certain  age  yields  himself  in  subjec- 
tion to  "  a  caitiff  spirit."  That  a  caitiff  spirit  prowls 
around  the  buildings  of  every  college  and  sometimes 
takes  possession  of  scores  and  hundreds  of  its  inhabi- 
tants is  too  notorious  to  need  any  evidence.  Whatever 
may  impede  its  influence  or  repress  its  manifestations 
is  obviously  most  salutary.  That  this  spirit  has  some- 
times been  exasperated  and  rendered  more  brutal  and 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I97 

barbarous  by  barbarous  methods  of  punishment  may  be 
safely  admitted,  without  abating  at  all  from  the  author- 
ity of  any  existing  government  or  without  conceding  in 
the  least  to  the  amiable  delusion  that  a  college  commu- 
nity can  be  managed  without  rigid  authority  ;  and  even 
in  entire  consistency  with  the  doctrine  that  the  govern- 
ment must  be  absolute  in  its  commands  and  summary 
in  its  administration.  Whatever  removes  the  occasion 
for  the  exercise  of  mere  authority,  or  even  for  the  sem- 
blance of  its  assertion  is,  however,  usually  acknowledged 
to  be  a  real  blessing  with  both  men  and  brutes,  and  a  col- 
lege student  may  surely  take  rank  somewhere  between 
the  extremes  of  the  series. 


198  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


X. 

LAWS  AND  SUPERVISION, 

That  a 'college  community  requires  rules,  and  that 
rules  must  be  enforced  by  discipline  will  not  be  dis- 
puted. That  a  certain  measure  of  inspection  and  su- 
pervision should  also  be  exercised  over  this  community, 
to  preserve  decorum  in  the  apartments  and  grounds, 
would  scarcely  be  denied.  It  is  not,  however,  easy  to 
answer  the  question  how  minute  the  supervision  by  the 
college  authorities  should  be.  Upon  this  subject  opin- 
ions differ  very  widely,  and  these  opinions  differ  in  the 
case  of  the  same  persons  with  their  varying  circum- 
stances. One  class  of  critfcs  contend  for  the  constant 
and  minute  supervision  of  a  Jesuit  seminary,  every  rule 
and  provision  of  which  is  founded  on  suspicion  and 
distrust.  Another  class  would  abandon  all  special 
rules  and  inspection  and  leave  the  students  entirely  to 
their  own  sense  of  honor  and  decorum.  One  class  of 
advisers  would  proceed  on  the  principle  that  all  stu- 
dents are  liars  and  scoundrels,  another  that  they  are  all 
gentlemen  and  men  of  truth  ;  neither  of  which  opinions 
happens  to  be  just.  The  complaint  is  often  heard  and 
urged  with  special  earnestness  for  or  against  this  or 
that  college,  that  in  the  one  the  instructors  are  on 
intimate  and  familiar  terms  with  their  pupils  anc/  exert 
over  them  a  parental   supervision,  while  in   the  other 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  I99 

they  are  distant  and  leave    the  pupils    to  themselves. 
Some  insist  that  if  students  reside  together  they  should 
be  inspected  in  their  apartment  by  day  and  carefully 
locked   in  at   an  early  hour  by   night.     Others  would 
leave  them  alone  by  day  and  night,  without  even  the 
presence  of  an  officer  in  the  building  in  which  they  con- 
gregate, and  to  and  from  which  they  have  ready  access 
and  egress  at  all  hours.     Many  insist  that  all  special 
laws  and  penalties  provoke  disorder  and  mischief,  while 
others  insist  that  college  laws  should  be  numerous  and 
be  strictly  enforced.     We  cannot  discuss  these  questions 
in  detail,  nor  need  we  in  order  to  vindicate  the  system 
of  college   residence    and   general    supervision.      The 
English  system  of  locking  in  at  an  early  hour  is  mani- 
festly unsuited  to  the  general  freedom  of  our  institu- 
tions,  and   is  chiefly  valuable  as  a  security   against  a 
single  vice.     It  is  better  adapted  to   their  system  of 
small   colleges   in  each   of  which  the    inmates  live  in 
some  sort  a  family  life.     It  is  the  supplement  or  coun- 
terpoise  to  the  greater   freedom   of  their  students  in 
many  other  respects,  as  in  daily  attendance  at  lectures 
and  in  daily  examinations  of  the  work  performed.     It 
is  in  fact  the  single  controlling  influence  which  the  col- 
lege   can    constandy   enforce,    in   place    of  which   the 
American   college  has  manifold  more   efficient  substi- 
tutes.    Frequent  visitation  of  the  students  by  day  and 
evening  has  been  recommended  by  many  as  essential 
to  the  faithful  supervision  and  the  parental  care  which 
the  college  is  bound  to  exercise.     This  was  practised 
in  many  of  our  colleges  in   other  times  and   has  not 
been  entirely   disused.      In  some    instances    the  lodg- 
in^^s  of  students  have  been  attached  to  and  been  alter- 


200  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

nate  with  the  residences  of  professors  for  the  purpose 
of  making  this  inspection  more  constant  and  complete. 
It  has  been  generally  found  that  such  minute  and  con- 
stant supervision  is  exceedingly  ungrateful  and  annoy- 
ing, because  it  presents  the  aspect  of  meddling ;  and  it 
provokes  in  return  an  antagonistic  attitude  in  manifold 
petty  annoyances.  The  agression  of  constant  interfer- 
ence provokes  the  resistance  of  boyish  mischief  and 
arouses  the  wrath  of  the  manhood  that  is  half  devel- 
oped and  is  therefore  intensely  jealous  for  its  invaded 
rights.  The  proper  medium  between  the  too  little  and 
the  too  much,  is  for  the  government  to  maintain  and 
occasionally  to  assert  its  right  of  visitation,  and  provide 
for  the  presence  in  every  dormitory  by  day  and  night 
of  officers  clothed  with  complete  authority,  but  to  exer- 
cise its  supervision  chiefly  by  methods  that  are  indirect. 
The  judgment  of  what  students  are  doing  and  the  con- 
trol of  their  movements  can  be  most  efficiently  exer- 
cised by  their  attendance  af  all  the  required  exercises, 
by  constant  responsibility  for  the  work  of  every  day,  and 
by  the  manly  and  scholarly  sentiment  of  the  college 
community.  The  monitor's  returns  and  the  instructors' 
record  book,  when  closely  watched  and  efficiently  used, 
if  conjoined  with  occasional  personal  interviews  with 
students  who  are  any  way  derelict  are,  we  are  per- 
suaded, the  most  efficient  as  well  as  the  least  oppres- 
sive instruments  of  official  supervision.  That  the  senti- 
ment of  the  college  community  is  far  more  important 
and  far  more  efficient  than  is  commonly  supposed  we 
have  already  sought  to  establish.  It  is  a  most  interest- 
ing and  important  inquiry  whether  any  system  of  meas- 
ures can  be  devised  by  which  this  public  sentiment  can 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  20I 

be  elevated  to  a  higher  tone  and  can  be  maintained  in 
greater  efficiency.  Can  any  formal  arrangement  be 
made  by  officers,  discipline,  or  studies  which  shall  in- 
troduce into  the  community  better  and  more  elevating 
influences  ?  It  is  manifest  that  such  influences  must  to 
a  great  extent  be  personal  and  individual.  The  selection 
of  officers  of  high  personal  character  and  of  ardent  and 
self-sacrificing  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  students 
is  the  first  condition  of  success  in  this  respect.  The 
maintenance  of  a  certain  degree  of  free  and  familiar  in- 
tercourse between  them  and  their  pupils  is  equally  es- 
sential. The  traditions  of  some  of  the  colleges  in  this 
country  are  unfavorable  to  a  too  familiar  intimacy,  and 
the  feelings  of  the  students  themselves  demand  a  meas- 
ure of  reserve  and  isolation  on  both  sides.  Too  much 
advice,  especially  if  it  is  obtrusively  administered,  is  if 
possible  more  offensive  than  too  much  supervision. 
The  students  themselves  naturally  withdraw  from  the 
society  of  those  who  are  older  than  themselves  and  who 
hold  official  relations  that  involve  some  constraint  on 
both. sides.  The  opinions  and  sympathies  of  their  fel- 
lows are  of  far  greater  concern  to  them  than  the  judg- 
ments and  feelings  of  their  instructors.  While  all  this 
is  true  there  is  room  even  under  the  present  arrange- 
ments, for  the  exertion  of  a  very  efficient  influence  over 
the  college  community,  by  those  who  are  disposed  to 
use  it.  The  English  universities  have  one  advantage 
however  which  we  should  seek  to  engraft  upon  our  sys- 
tem. The  intercourse  of  the  tutor  with  his  pupil  is 
constant  and  intimate.  It  is  often  generous  and  con- 
fiding. The  tutor  works  with  his  pupil  and  teaches 
him  how  to  work.     He  sympathizes  with  his  difficulties 


202  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

as  well  as  corrects  his  mistakes.  He  inspires  his  am- 
bitions and  elevates  his  aims  ;  he  liberalizes  his  drudg- 
eries and  imparts  to  the  flagging  somewhat  of  his  own 
enthusiasm.  He  lays  the  foundation  for  life-long  friend- 
ships, and  in  this  way  perpetuates  his  own  influence, 
and  the  spirit  of  his  own  attainments  and  culture.  Can 
we  do  anything  of  the  sort  ?  We  could  if  we  had  the 
means.  We  could  avail  ourselves  of  all  the  advantages 
of  the  system  of  "  fellows  "  and  "  private  tutors  "  with- 
out m.any  of  its  incidental  evils.  The  advantages  to 
our  system  of  instruction  of  terminable  fellowships  or 
scholarships  of  the  house  have  already  been  insisted 
on.  The  services  which  they  might  render  as  connect- 
ing links  between  oflicers  and  students  are  if  possible  still 
more  important.  The  presence  in  a  college  community 
of  a  sufficient  number  of  recent  graduates,  of  eminent 
attainments  and  of  attractive  characters,  who  should 
share  in  the  sympathies  and  have  access  to  the  opin- 
ions of  the  undergraduates, 'whose  associations  should 
be  constant  with  the  better  men  of  all  the  classes, 
while  their  services  as  tutors  and  guides  to  the  weaker 
should  open  to  them  abundant  opportunites  for  be- 
friending them  intellectually  and  morally,  could  not 
fail  to  be  most  efficient  in  elevating  the  tone  of  college 
opinion  and  of  college  scholarship,  manners,  and  morals. 
Such  a  provision  would  go  farther  than  any  other  to- 
wards redeeming  these  communities  from  much  of  the 
reproach  which  rests  upon  them,  however  undeserved 
and  exaggerated  it  often  may  be. 

Dr.  Arnold  remarks  more  than  once  in  his  letters  to 
this  effect :  if  the  sixth  form  is  with  me  I  can  defy  evil  in- 
fluences from  every  other  source.     This  thought  occurs 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


203 


to  US  in  connection  with  the  inquiry  whether  the  higher 
classes, — rather,  whether  the  highest  of  all,  should  not 
have  the  privileges  proper  to  a  more  positive  manhood 
than  are  allowed  in  respect  to  its  methods  of  study, 
relations  to  the  instructors,  and  its  responsibility  for 
the  controlling  sentiment  of  the  institution.  Under  the 
operation  of  natural  laws  a  somewhat  different  position 
has  been  accorded  to  it  in  all  these  respects  than  has 
been  conceded  to  the  other  classes.  The  studies  pur- 
sued are  at  once  more  directly  liberal  as  well  as  more 
practical.  They  are  at  least  more  practical  in  the 
sense  of  having  a  more  vital  relation  to  the  principles 
which  underlie  individual  faith  and  character,  to  the 
historical  and  political  questions  which  agitate  the 
world  of  living  men  as  well  as  to  the  literature  in 
which* men  of  culture  find  at  once  their  refreshment 
and  inspiration.  The  methods  of  instruction  may  be 
less  constrained,  and  the  intercourse  with  instructors 
more  free  and  confiding.  Some  have  advised  that  the 
freedom  of  the  university  should  be  introduced  in  the 
closing  year,  and  that  for  the  selection  of  their  studies 
as  well  as  for  their  responsibility  in  pursuing  them  the 
Seniors  should  be  more  largely  left  to  themselves.  We 
have  already  given  the  reasons  why  elective  studies  can- 
not to  a  very  great  extent  be  allowed  and  why  private 
studies  are  to  be  preferred.  It  is  however  altogether 
essential  to  the  perfection  and  the  full  development  of 
the  college  system,  that  the  last  year  of  college  life 
should  be  turned  to  its  best  account  in  self-culture. 
With  its  beginning  there  begins  to  be  developed  even 
to  the  frivolous  and  the  idle  the  sense  of  individual  re- 
sponsibility for  the  future.     Many  of  the  studies  invite 


204  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

to  manly  and  moral  reflection.  Many  of  them  exercise 
the  inventive  and  aesthetic  powers  to  an  unwonted 
degree.  All  of  them  introduce  the  students  to  the 
thoughts  and  opinions  of  cultivated  men  upon  subjects 
of  comprehensive  and  general  interest.  During  this 
year  the  student  begins,  perhaps  for  the  first  time  in 
his  life,  to  read,  and  is  earnest  to  learn  how  to  read. 
All  these  influences  tend  to  awaken  whatever  of  man- 
hood may  hitherto  have  lain  dormant,  and  to  quicken 
into  life  some  sense  of  his  responsibility  for  his  influ- 
ence over  the  community  in  which  he  lives.  Whatever 
can  be  done  to  turn  these  advantages  to  the  most  effi- 
cient use  will  elevate  the  tone  of  feeling  in  the  whole 
college.  We  do  not  advise  the  release  of  the  Senior 
from  any  of  the  obligations  of  an  enforced  system  of 
study.  He  needs  them  as  much  as  ever  and  can  profit 
by  them  more  than  ever.  But  he  can  certainly  be  made 
to  understand  the  value  of  a  manly  sympathy  with  the 
decorum  and  order  of  the  college  and  the  importance 
of  his  own  influence  in  this  regard.  It  is  not  desirable 
that  he  should  be  instructed  without  constant  responsi- 
bility for  his  work.  But  he  may  certainly  be  treated  as 
a  man  who  has  ceased  to  be  a  school  boy.  The  Senior 
year  ought  to  be  the  busiest  year  of  all,  but  it  ought 
not  to  be  overburdened  with  manifold  and  novel  studies. 
Nothing  is  more  injurious  and  discouraging  than  the 
practice  of  crowding  a  great  number  of  liberal  scientific 
studies  into  the  last  year  of  the  course,  which  has  been 
allowed  in  so  many  colleges,  by  way  of  "finishing," 
as  if  the  student  were  to  cease  to  study  and  learn 
as  soon  he  completes  his  college  course.  The  habits 
of  thorough  work  and   the    satisfaction    of  successful 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  205 

achie\«ement,  which  come  from  a  very  few  things  well 
and  carefully  done,  are  worth  quite  as  much  to  the 
character  as  they  are  to  the  intellect,  ^^latever  gives 
tone  to  either  in  the  management  of  the  Senior  class  in 
any  American  college  will  give  elevation  and  tone  to  the 
sentiment  of  the  whole  community.  It  is  not  too  much 
to  labor  and  hope  for,  that  in  the  future  development 
of  the  college  system  the  Senior  class  may  feel  its 
responsibility  and  exercise  its  influence  for  good  with 
greater  efficiency,  and  as  a  consequence  the  American 
colleges  may  attain  a  nobler  and  more  healthful  common 
life. 

Our  discussion  of  this  common  life  requires  us  to 
consider  the  moral  and  religious  influences  which  may 
properly  be  employed  in  invigorating  and  controlling  it. 
To  this  subject  we  proceed. 


206  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


XI. 

THE  RELIGIOUS  CHARACTER  OF  COLLEGES. 

The  consideration  of  the  American  colleges  as  com- 
munities has  brought  us  to  the  question  of  their  reli- 
gious character.  This  includes  several  subordinate 
questions,  such  as,  whether  they  ought  to  be  placed  un- 
der a  positive  religious  influence,  and  to  what  extent 
and  in  what  manner  this  influence  may  jDroperly  be  ex- 
ercised. These  questions,  and  many  others  which 
arise  under  this  comprehensive  topic,  are  from  the  na- 
ture of  the  subject  not  easily  answered,  and  in  the 
present  state  of  opinion  are  involved  in  somewhat  seri- 
ous complications. 

We  may  as  well  say,  at  the  outset,  that  the  view 
which  any  man,  otherwise  well-informed,  will  take  of 
this  subject,  must  necessarily  vary  with  the  views  which 
he  takes  of  religion  itself,  as  to  its  essential  nature  and 
authority,  its  evidence,  and  its  relation  to  man's  respon- 
sibility and  destiny.  It  will  vary  also  with  the  views 
which  he  takes  of  Christianity ;  according  as  he  re- 
gards it  as  supernaturally  given  and  historically  true,  or 
as  he  believes  it  to  be  of  human  origination,  and, 
therefore,  so  far  as  its  miracles  and  the  claims  and  con- 
ceptions of  its  central  personages  are  concerned,  as 
more  or  less  historically  erroneous.  It  will  vary  also 
according  as  his  views  are  more  or  less  enlarged  of  its 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  207 

relations  to  human  culture,  and  of  its  friendliness  to  the 
highest  forms  of  human  development. 

The  position  which  we  occupy  is  that  "  the  Christian 
faith  is  the  perfection  of  human  reason  ;"  that  super- 
natural and  historical  Christianity  is  the  only  Chris- 
tianity which  is  worth  defending  or  which  is  capable  of 
being  defended  on  the  grounds  of  reason  or  history ; 
and  that  such  a  Christianity,  when  interpreted  by  en- 
lightened judgment,  as  to  its  truths  and  its  precepts,  is 
not  only  friendly  to  the  highest  forms  of  culture,  but  is 
an  essential  condition  of  the  same. 

There  are  not  a  few  at  the  present  time  who  do  not 
agree  with  us  in  this  position.  More  than  a  few,  we 
fear,  of  those  interested  in  the  higher  education  of  the 
country,  so  far  hesitate  to  receive  any  positive  form  of 
religion  as  to  assume  in  all  their  reasonings,  that  the 
claims  of  supernatural  Christianity  are  more  likely  than 
otherwise  to  be  set  aside  in  the  progress  of  historical 
and  scientific  investigation,  and  that  it  is  therefore  in- 
consistent as  well  as  impolitic  for  the  universities  and 
colleges  of  the  country  to  be  very  positively  committed 
to  the  support  of  these  claims.  Such  a  recognition  of 
Christianity,  in  their  view,  hinders  the  freedom  of  in- 
vestigation and  of  teaching,  and  is  inconsistent  with 
that  tolerance  among  scholars  which  is  required  by  the 
spirit  of  the  age.  They  might  repel  the  charge  of  be- 
ing anti-religious  or  atheistic  or  even  anti-Christian  in 
their  own  faith,  but  they  reason  that  for  a  college  to 
recognize  the  Christian  faith  in  its  teachings  is  to  com- 
mit itself  to  an  implied  bondage  of  opinion,  which  can- 
not but  constrain  the  freedom  of  its  spirit,  or  which 
must,  at  least,  make  it  unwisely  intolerant.  We  cannot 
accept  this  position  or  the  inferences  to  which  it  leads. 


2o8  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

We  must  discuss  this  question  in  an  important  sense 
from  a  Christian  position,  and  judge  of  the  whole  sub- 
ject from  a  Christian  point  of  view.  But  wliile  we 
frankly  avow  our  position,  we  trust  that  it  will  not  make 
us  so  one  sided  in  our  construction  of  those  whose  posi- 
tion differs  from  our  own  as  to  render  us  incapable  of 
appreciating  their  difficulties  or  of  looking  at  college 
and  university  education  from  their  point  of  view. 
Though  our  position  is  distinctively  and  avowedly 
Christian,  we  do  not  propose  to  argue  simply  as  theolo- 
gians, or  to  use  our  assumption  of  the  truth  of  Chris- 
tianity as  a  vantage  ground  ;  but  to  argue  as  friends  of 
education,  and  to  occupy,  so  far  as  we  may,  the  ground 
which  is  common  to  all  friends  of  culture  who  are  not 
illiberally  or  fanatically  irreligious  and  atheistic  in  their 
scientific  and  practical  theories. 

The  view  which  we  shall  endeavor  to  maintain  is 
that  the  American  Colleges  should  have  a  positively  re- 
ligious and  Christian  character.  We  have  in  mind  the 
college  such  as  we  have  conceived  and  described  it, — 
the  college  which  is  a  distinct  community  and  maintains 
a  separate  and  distinctive  intellectual  and  social  life. 
The  few  colleges  which  are  not  distinct  as  communities 
— the  colleges  of  the  very  large  cities,  where  pupils  live 
in  their  own  homes  and  are  rooted  in  their  own  families 
— can  derive  their  religious  influence  from  the  same 
sources  from  which  other  youths  derive  theirs,  that  is, 
from  the  domestic,  social,  and  church  relations  of  the 
great  community  from  which  they  have  never  been 
transplanted.  While  it  is  desirable,  and  in  a  sense, 
necessary  that  institutions  of  this  kind  should  exert  a 
positive  religious  and  Christian  influence,  the  necessity 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  209 

in  this  case  is  not  so  imperative.  We  are  concerned 
with  those  colleges  which  maintain  the  distinctive  and 
intensely  active  common  life  which  we  have  described. 

When  we  say  that  the  college  of  this  description 
should  be  positive  in  its  religious  and  Christian  influ- 
ence, we  mean  that  the  essential  facts  and  truths  of  the 
Christian  system  should  be  recognized  in  all  its  teach- 
ings as  true  ;  that  as  a  community  the  college  should 
participate  in  Christian  worship,  and  that  its  instruction 
and  discipline  should,  with  rare  exceptions,  be  in  the 
hands  of  men  of  a  positive  and  earnest  Christian  char- 
acter. 

Our  reasons  are  the  following  : 

First. — The  colleges  as  such  have  the  same  duty  and 
need  of  social  religion  which  exist  in  every  community. 
This  can  be  doubted  or  denied  only  by  those  who  deny 
altogether  the  obligation  of  united  and  common  reli- 
gious teaching  and  worship.  We  have  seen  that  the 
college,  as  a  community,  is  eminently  independent  and 
self-sufficing,  deriving  the  roots  of  its  life  eminently 
from  within  itself,  and  living  that  life  with  an  energy 
that  is  especially  intense.  If  other  human  societies 
need  to  be  socially  religious,  the  need  of  the  college  is 
preeminent.  If  it  is  becoming  that  the  great  commu- 
nity of  men  should  divide  itself  into  separate  societies 
in  order  that  it  may  maintain  religious  teaching  and 
worship,  then  it  is  especially  appropriate  that  a  society 
which  is  separated  from  every  other  so  emphatically  as 
is  the  college,  should  be  provided  with  such  teaching  and 
worship.  If  every  household  ought  to  be  a  religious 
commonwealth,  then  the  college  which  takes  the  youth 
from  his  home  and  introduces  him  into  a  larger  house- 


2IO  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

hold  of  its  own,  ought  to  sustain  that  religious  teaching 
and  worship  which  are  ajDpropriate  to  its  own  necessities 
and  position. 

Second. — The  college,  as  compared  with  other  com- 
munities,-stands  in  special  and  imperative  need  of  re- 
ligious restraints  and  religious  influences.  The  indi- 
viduals of  which  it  is  composed  have  been  released, 
sometimes  abruptly,  from  the  restraints  of  the  family 
and  of  the  public  opinion  of  society  at  large.  They 
form  to  themselves  a  public  sentiment  of  their  own,  which, 
though  often  generous  and  just,  is  yet  liable  to  strange 
caprices  and  sudden  revolutions,  even  when  sobered 
and  elevated  by  the  most  active  and  ennobling  religious 
elements.  The  passions  are  strong,  the  will  is  impetu- 
ous and  weak,  the  judgment  is  immature,  the  experi- 
ence of  temptation  is  limited,  the  habits  of  good  are 
not  fixed,  while  those  to  evil  are  sometimes  fearfully 
strong.  Such  a  community,  as  it  would  seem,  does  of 
all  others  stand  in  pressing  need  of  the  best  religious 
influences,  and  these  should  be  constantly  applied, 
wisely  varied,  and  patiently  maintained.  If  Christian- 
ity can  do  anything  to  control  and  elevate  any  class  of 
persons,  or  if  it  is  needed  for  any,  it  is  adapted  to  and 
required  for  the  susceptible,  intelligent,  and  impetuous 
youth,  who  resort  to  the  American  Colleges. 

What  is  adapted  to  the  welfare  of  young  men  as  in- 
individuals,  is  equally  required  for  the  order  and  disci- 
pline of  the  whole  body.  To  govern  a  college  by  mere 
law,  or  by  the  force  of  rules  and  penalties,  without  ap- 
pealing to  the  ethical  and  religious  feelings  of  the 
pupils,  is  not  always  successful  in  the  lowest  sense,  and 
it  never  can  be  in  the  highest.     The  reason  and  con- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  211 

science  must  often  be  appealed  to,  and  if  this  is  done 
with  effect,  both  reason  and  conscience  must  be  rein- 
forced and  quickened  by  religious  faith  and  feeling. 
If  religious  restraints  and  religious  hopes  are  required 
in  every  community  of  full  grown  men — not  as  is  some- 
times charged  to  do  the  work  of  a  police,  but  to  make 
the  w^ork  of  a  police  less  necessary, — this  must  be  emi- 
nently true  in  a  community  of  youths  whose  sense  of 
propriety  is  not  always  proportioned  to  their  knowl- 
edge, and  whose  mobile  and  impetuous  tempers  are  of- 
ten exasperated  to  resistance  by  rules  and  surveillance. 
If  the  college  contains  none  whose  principles  of  duty 
are  made  sturdy  by  religious  reverence  and  whose  con- 
sciences are  quickened  by  the  presence  and  love  of 
God,  then,  on  those  occasions  of  strain  and  conflict 
between  the  students  and  the  faculty  which  must  inev- 
itably occur  from  time  to  time,  the  cause  of  order  must 
be  imperiled.  It  is  not  according  to  the  wisdom  of  ex- 
perience to  affirm  that  such  exigencies  will  not  arise, 
nor  if  they  do  occur,  to  rely  upon  any  principles  which 
are  not  enforced,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  by  reli- 
gious faith. 

Third. — It  is  a  legitimate  and  important  function  of 
the  college,  to  form  the  character  to  moral  and  religious 
excellence.  Education  should  not  and  cannot  be  lim- 
ited to  the  culture  of  the  intellect  and  the  tastes.  It 
also  properly  includes  the  training  of  the  character. 
The  Christian  believer  holds  that  the  character  can  only 
be  rightly  formed  when  it  is  subjected  to  the  authority 
of  Christ.  He  holds  that  discipleship  to  Christ  is  the 
condition  of  complete  success  in  the  culture  and  regula- 
tion of  the  springs  of  action.     When  then  he  requires 


212  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

that  the  college  should  teach  and  influence  its  pupils 
according  to  this  theory,  he  is  only  consistent  with  his 
own  most  sacred  convictions.  Whenever  the  instruction 
on  scientific  and  literary  themes  can  be  of  such  a  char- 
acter as  to  afford  the  opportunity  of  confirming  the 
Christian  faith,  and  strengthening  Christian  purposes, 
it  should  in  all  cases  be  given.  If  it  furnishes  no  such 
opportunity,  the  character  of  the  instructor  may  still  at- 
tract and  influence  his  pupils.  Those  who  found  and 
endow  Christian  colleges  may  as  properly  endow  them  for 
purposes  of  religious  culture,  so  far  as  such  culture  can 
be  successfully  applied,  as  make  them  places  of  Intel- 
lectual  discipline.  Those  who  do  not  accept  the  Christ- 
ian notion  of  character,  who  do  not  believe  in  Christ  as 
the  object  of  man's  confidence  and  the  light  and  hope 
of  his  life,  may  see  no  propriety  in  connecting  these  in- 
fluences with  his  training  in  youth.  They  would  ex- 
clude religion  and  Christianity  from  the  college  for  the 
same  reasons  and  no  other  for  which  they  would  exclude 
them  from  the  conduct  of  the  life.  Conversely,  the 
same  reasoning  which  would  exclude  them  from  a  place 
in  the  college,  would  require  that  they  be  rejected  alto- 
gether. 

Fourth. — If  moral  and  religious  perfection  are  the 
end  of  all  education,  then  moral  and  religious  culture 
are  friendly  to  education  and  culture  of  every  kind. 
"  The  end  of  learning,"  says  Milton,  "  is  to  repair  the 
ruins  of  our  first  parents,  by  regaining  to  know  God 
aright,  and  out  of  that  knowledge  to  love  him,  to  imi- 
tate him,  to  be  like  him,  as  we  may  the  nearest  by  pos- 
sessing our  souls  of  true  virtue,  which  being  united  to 
the  heavenly  grace  of  faith,  makes  up  the  highest  per- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  2x3 

fection.  But  because  our  understanding  cannot  in  this 
body  found  itself  but  on  sensible  things,  nor  arrive  so 
clearly  to  the  knowledge  of  God  and  invisible  things, 
as  by  orderly  conning  over  the  visible  and  inferior  crea- 
tures, the  same  method  is  necessarily  to  be  followed  in 
all  discreet  teaching."  These  views,  with  some  quali- 
fications of  phraseology,  will  be  accepted  by  all  those 
who  have  any  faith  or  interest  in  religious  truth.  They 
are  in  brief "  that  moral  and  religious  perfection  are 
the  final  aim  of  all  human  culture,  as  they  are  of  our 
existence  and  discipline  in  the  human  condition.  This 
end  is  promoted  by  education,  chiefly  by  the  study  of 
nature  and  of  books."  *  Now  the  question  upon  which 
opinions  differ,  is,  whether  this  final,  that  is  the  religious 
aim,  ought  to  be  distinctly  recognized  in  our  educational 
arrangements,  especially  in  the  higher  institutions  of 
learning.  Some  contend  that  any  recognition  of  reli- 
gious ends  other  than  the  most  indirect  and  incidental 
must  interfere  with  the  direct  object  of  education,  w^hich 
is  culture,  and  in  this  way  may  defeat  the  ends  of  reli- 
gion itself  Others  contend,  that  inasmuch  as  religion 
is  supreme,  it  should  be  recognized  and  pursued  in  the 
college,  even  at  the  expense  and  sacrifice  of  culture  ; 
that  whatever  else  should  be  sacrificed  even  in  an  in- 
stitution professedly  devoted  to  education,  religion 
should  be  regarded  as  supreme.  We  contend  that 
there  is  no  incompatibility  between  the  two ;  that  while 
culture  should  be  made  the  direct  object  of  every  insti- 
tution of  learning,  and  in  one  sense  the  immediate  aim 
of  its  arrangements,  this  aim  is  not  hindered  but  promo- 
ted by  that  enlightened  recognition  of  religion  which 
culture  makes  possible.     We  hold  that  religion  controls 


214  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

and  tempers  culture,  in  order  to  stimulate,  refine,  and  ele- 
vate it ;  and  culture,  in  its  turn,  enlightens  and  liberal- 
izes religion.  We  do  not  agree  with  Matthew  Arnold 
in  his  Culture  and  Aiiarchy^  that  the  Christian  element 
is  essentially  "  Hebraistic"  in  the  sense  of  being  dog- 
matic, narrow,  and  intolerant,  and  that  as  such  it  is  op- 
posed to  the  "  Hellenistic"  element,  which  is  reflecting, 
enlightened,  tolerant,  and  civilized.  Rather  do  we  hold 
that  Christianity  mediates  between  Judaism  and  Hel- 
lenism, that  it  is  Hebraism  Hellenized,  and  contains  in 
itself  the  excellences  of  both  directions,  softening  the 
austerities  of  Judaism  by  the  refinements  of  Greece, 
and  thus  enlarging  its  narrowness  by  "  turning  a  stream 
of  fresh  and  free  thought  upon  our  stock  notions  and 
habits."  Or  rather  we  should  say  that  it  is  only  by  the 
touch  of  the  divinely  human  Master  and  Lord  of  Chris- 
tianity, that  these  antagonistic  elements  can  be  fused 
into  something  nobler  than  either,  the  self-sacrifice  and 
worship  of  that  Christian  love  which  "  seeketh  not  her 
own."  Did  we  not  believe  that  an  earnest  and  spir- 
itual Christianity  is  compatible  with  and  favorable  to 
the  highest  forms  of  human  culture,  we  should  not  be- 
lieve it  to  be  from  God.  But  believing  that  it  is  divine, 
not  merely  in  its  moral  and  religious  relations  to  the 
individual  soul,  but  in  its  adaptations  to  every  possi- 
ble development  of  humanity,  we  think  that  its  truths 
and  spirit  should  be  distinctly  and  prominently  recog- 
nized in  all  our  higher  institutions  of  learning  ;  and 
this  not  merely  from  its  acknowledged  importance  and 
supremacy,  but  because  of  its  beneficent  influence  upon 
learning  and  culture  themselves.  We  would  not  make 
of  our  colleges  houses  of  piety  as  such,  we  would  not 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PDDLIC.  215 

turn  their  scholastic  exercises  into  spiritual  retraites ; 
we  would  not  lower  the  standard  of  learning  or  dimin- 
ish the  requirements  of  taste  and  culture  ;  but  we  would 
distinctly  hold  up  and  exemplify  the  most  spiritual  and 
earnest  forms  of  Christian  duty  and  the  Christian  life, 
as  the  ends  to  which  all  learning  and  all  culture  should 
be  consecrated  as  supreme.  The  mottoes  upon  the 
seals  of  Harvard  and  Yale  respectively,  when  united 
into  one,  happily  express  our  own  opinion,  as  they  do 
justice  to  the  claims  of  religion  on  the  one  hand,  and  of 
culture  on  the  other.  Harvard,  in  her  Christo  et  Ecde- 
sicE,  pays  the  chief  homage  to  religion,  as  it  was  natural 
that  she  should,  being  older  in  time.  Yale  completes 
the  motto,  by  Lux  et  Veritas^  providing  for  culture  in 
words  that  remind  us  of  Arnold's  oft-repeated  "  sweet- 
ness and  light." 

We  trust  that  none  of  our  readers  will  be  surprised 
that  we  assert,  that  other  things  being  equal, — as  en- 
dowments, time,  access  to  an  intelligent  and  refined 
community,  with  the  appliances  with  which  such  a 
community  provides  itself, — that  institution  of  learning 
which  is  earnestly  religious  is  certain  to  make  the  larg- 
est and  most  valuable  achievements  in  science  and 
learning,  as  well  as  in  literary  tastes  and  capacity. 

Among  the  particulars  in  which  an  earnest  Christian 
spirit  is  fitted  to  act  favorably  upon  the  culture  of  the 
colleges,  are  the  following.  It  is  favorable  to  persever- 
ing industry.  Culture  of  every  sort  is  the  fruit  of  ap- 
plication. Success  in  any  science  and  art  is  achieved 
by  labor.  The  spirit  of  Christianity  is  a  spirit  of  self- 
denying  and  patient  service.  To  what  feats  of  literary 
work  has  it  not  prompted,  in  the  amazing  toil  by  day 


2l6  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

and  night,  through  month  and  years,  which  has  wrought 
the  ponderous  tomes  that  fill  the  libraries  of  the 
learned  ?  It  is  true  other  motives  prompt  to  laborious 
erudition  and  scientific  toil ;  the  motives  of  ambition 
in  all  its  forms,  and  sometimes  those  of  malevolent  pas- 
sion or  critical  spleen,  but  none  of  these  is  a  force 
which  in  its  nature  is  so  tense  and  untiring  as  are  reli- 
gious duty  and  Christian  self-denial.  What  superhu- 
man patience  has  been  shown  by  the  devotees  of 
Christian  art  in  all  its  forms,  who  have  labored,  not 
merely  for  an  immortality  of  earthly  fame,  but  under 
the  inspiration  which  came  from  the  assured  hope  of  a 
personal  immortality  which  should  surpass  by  its  sat- 
isfying realities  their  loftiest  ideals  ! 

The  Christian  spirit  is  in  its  nature  truth-loving.  If 
there  is  any  one  feature  prominent  in  the  character  of 
its  great  Founder,  in  which  he  was  before  his  own  time 
and  has  given  character  to  all  the  time  that  has  fol- 
lowed, it  is  his  recognition  of  the  independence  of  the 
truth  as  such,  and  of  its  authority,  by  virtue  of  its  hold 
upon  the  reason.  If  there  is  any  one  spirit  which  he 
has  inculcated  by  precept  and  example,  it  is  the  spirit 
of  brave  allegiance  to  truth.  If  any  duty  may  be  said 
to  have  been  prominently  recognized  and  enforced  by 
him,  it  is  the  duty  of  candor  in  weighing  all  sorts  of 
evidence.  The  father  of  the  inductive  philosophy  could 
give  no  better  illustration  of  the  spirit  which  he  regarded 
as  the  condition  of  successful  investigation  and  of  actual 
progress,  than  in  these  words,  "  that  it  is  no  less  true  in 
this  human  kingdom  of  knowledge,  than  in  God's  king- 
dom of  heaven,  that  no  man  shall  enter  it  except  he  be- 
come first  as  a  little  child^     It   enjoins   the  love   of  all 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  217 

sorts  of  truth — Truth  of  art  and  literature,  as  well  as 
of  that  beauty  which  is  but  another  name  for  aesthetic 
truth.  The  precept  "  whatsoever  things  are  true,  what- 
soever things  are  lovely,  whatsoever  things  are  of  good 
report,  think  on  these  thi?igs,''^  provides  for  the  most 
catholic  taste  conceivable,  for  the  most  progressive  civ- 
ilization, for  all  true  refinement  in  art,  in  literature,  in 
manners,  and  in  civilization  of  every  kind.  It  not  only 
provides  for  all  these,  but  it  enjoins  them  all  as  duties. 

It  is,  moreover,  refinifig  in  its  operation  and  influ- 
ences, and  so  far  is  eminently  favorable  to  culture.  It 
represses  the  animal  passions  with  the  spiritual  debase- 
ment which  they  involve.  It  rises  above  mere  worldly 
tendencies  \  with  their  inevitably  hardening  tendency, 
however  brilliant  the  polish  of  which  this  hardness  is 
capable.  It  substitutes  for  this  the  more  delicate 
graces  of  spiritual  modesty  and  spiritual  aspirations. 
It  destroys  the  selfish  affections  and  introduces  in  their 
place  a  love  which  is  warm  as  well  as  ennobling.  It 
rises  above  the  envious  jealousies  which,  if  reports  are 
true,  do  sometimes  separate  scientists,  poets,  and  musi- 
cians— as  well  as  theologians  and  religionists.  In  short, 
the  indirect  effect  of  Christian  feeling  is  to  call  forth 
and  encourage  whatever  in  human  sensibility  is  of  finer 
texture,  and  to  keep  it  fresh  and  pure.  The  same 
Christian  faith  which,  when  it  enters  a  cottage,  other 
things  being  equal,  awakens  and  intensifies  the  love  of 
flowers,  of  music,  of  poetry,  and  of  pictures,  does  also, 
when  it  dominates  in  the  cultured  soul,  increase  the 
delicacy  and  enlarge  the  sphere  of  its  tastes.  By  the 
same  rule,  when  it  prevafls  in  a  university  it  tends  to 
make  its  members  more  refined  in  all  their  capacities 


2l8  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

for  aesthetic  progress,  as  well  as  quickens  the  desire  to 
exercise  and  perfect  them. 

We  do  not  contend  that  Christianity  is  the  same 
thing  as  culture,  or  that  Christian  attainments  may  be 
accepted  in  a  college  as  an  equivalent  for  attainments  in 
science  and  literature.  As  we  have  said,  the  university 
and  the  college  are  not  proximately  designed  for  re- 
ligious culture  and  spiritual  edification,  but  for  study 
and  intellectual  discipline.  To  turn  them  into  houses 
of  religion  or  to  use  them  chiefly  or  prominently  as 
places  for  spiritual  instead  of  intellectual  exercises,  is 
grossly  to  pervert  them,  and  like  all  other  perversions 
and  half-truths  is  to  foster  all  manner  of  spiritual  mon- 
strosities ;  as  hypocrisy,  cant,  spiritual  jDride,  asceticism, 
and  the  like.  Hence  we  do  not  care  to  see  the  religi- 
ous features  of  a  college  paraded  in  the  newspapers,  or 
the  reports  of  its  religious  condition  and  doings  made 
the  subject  of  ostentatious  comments.  The  impropriety 
in  such  cases  is  eminently. conspicuous  and  offensive,  be- 
cause it  is  an  offense  against  religion  and  culture  com- 
bined.    Pharisaism  and  cant  are  never  in  good  taste. 

We  cannot  deny  that  Christianity  sometimes  seems 
to  be  antagonistic  to  culture,  especially  to  culture  in  its 
higher  fonns.  Its  ethical  claims  are  supreme  and  un- 
compromising. It  sets  the  moral  excellence  which 
comes  of  its  faith  and  obedience,  far  above  all  other 
excellences  and  requires  its  disciples  to  esteem  all 
these  as  nothing  in  this  comparison.  It  requires  that 
whenever  a  question  arises  between  the  gratification 
of  a  taste  and  the  discharge  of  a  duty,  or  between  the 
culture  of  the  intellect  and  the  culture  of  the  heart,  the 
former  should  be  sacrificed.     All  tastes  and  all  enjoy- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  219 

ments,  which  pertain  to  the  present,  must  be  held  as 
secondary  to  those  which  pertain  to  the  higher  and  un- 
seen life.  Hence  it  has  been  inferred  by  the  detractors 
of  Christianity,  that  it  is  barbarous  because  it  does  not 
exalt  art  and  culture  as  supreme ;  they  forgetting  that 
the  nature  or  fate  which  they  set  up  in  the  place  of 
Christ  is  equally  inexorable  and  cruel,  when  it  burns, 
and  deforms,  and  drowns,  or  limits,  in  myriads  of  ways, 
the  works  and  aspirations  of  culture  and  art.  It  has 
also  been  inferred  by  those  of  its  friends,  who  are  nar- 
row in  their  understanding  of  Christianity  or  who  make  it 
a  cloak  for  envy  or  suspicion  toward  those  whose  tastes 
are  more  refined  than  their  own,  that  while  a  certain 
degree  of  knowledge  and  culture  are  enforced  by  Chris- 
tianity, any  excess  beyond  is  inconsistent  with  its  spirit. 
For  these  and  other  reasons  the  impression  has  pre- 
vailed that  it  is  unfriendly  to  eminent  attainments  in 
science  and  letters,  and  therefore  cannot  be  comfort- 
ably housed  in  a  university  which  would  stand  at  the 
front  of  modern  achievements. 

To  shut  off  any  such  unfortunate  and  unwarrantable 
inferences,  we  concede  that  Christianity  has  much  to 
learn  from  culture  ;  that  while  it  is  refining  in  its  influ- 
ences and  therefore  tends  to  culture,  it  is  itself  refined 
and  enlarged  by  the  learning  to  which,  in  its  essential 
nature,  it  is  altogether  friendly.  Culture  as  such  largely 
pertains  to  the  expression  of  that  character  of  which 
Christianity  is  the  spring.  Grace  and  perfection  of  man- 
ners, purity  and  felicitousness  of  diction,  dexterity  in  the 
accomplishments  of  music,  drawing,  and  painting,  or 
nicety  of  sense  in  the  judgment  of  the  same,  as  well  as 
skill  and  science  in  the  more  intellectual  departments. 


220  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

all  confer  upon  Christianity  the  means  of  more  per- 
fectly manifesting  the  power  of  its  spiritual  beauty,  and 
teach  Christianity  itself  how  to  become  more  attractive 
by  assuming  those  adornments  which  she  herself  has 
very  largely  created,  and  all  of  which  she  welcomes 
and  rejoices  in  as  appropriate  to  herself. 

But  while  we  concede  all  this,  and  even  contend  that 
Christianity  may  learn  from  culture,  we  contend  also 
that  culture  itself  is  exposed  to  certain  excesses,  for 
which  Christianity  is  the  only  adequate  counterpoise 
and  remedy.  We  affirm  that  a  vigorous  religious  influ- 
ence is  needed  in  every  university,  if  for  no  other  rea- 
son, simply  as  a  corrective  against  the  one-sidedness, 
— the  Philistinism  we  might  call  it,  of  modern  science 
and  literature. 

Modern  culture,  from  the  very  perfection  which  it  re- 
quires and  attains  in  particular  departments,  tends  to 
narrowness,  positiveness,  and  conceit.  The  devotee  of 
any  single  branch  of  knowledge  or  department  of  art 
must  devote  himself  exclusively  and  perseveringly  to 
his  chosen  profession.  His  zeal  is  usually  propor- 
tioned to  his  success,  and  his  enthusiasm  confines  his 
attention  more  and  more  exclusively  to  the  objects  and 
pursuits  of  his  limited  sphere.  He  becomes  great  in  a 
single  department,  because  his  mind  moves  within  that 
alone.  It  often  happens  that  while  he  is  strong  in  one 
direction,  he  is  weak  in  thought  and  opinion  with  re- 
spect to  every  other.  But  it  does  not  follow  because  he 
is  weak  and  even  ignorant,  that  he  is  sensible  of  his  de- 
fects and  incapacity.  On  the  contrary,  his  conscious 
superiority  in  his  chosen  pursuit,  makes  him  positive, 
dogmatic,    and    conceited    in   respect   to    every    other. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  221 

Hence  the  sectarian  narrowness  which  divides  the  dev- 
otees of  the  physical  sciences,  and  their  acknowledged 
proneness  to  cliques  which  is  recognized  in  the  pointed 
words  of  President  White  :  "  It  may  seem  strange  that 
this  should  be  alluded  to  ;  but  in  view  of  the  fact  that 
more  than  one  American  college  has  been  ruined  by 
such  feuds,  and  that  very  many  have  been  crippled  ;  in 
view  of  the  cognate  fact  that  the  odiiwi  theologiaim 
seems  now  outdone  by  hates  between  scientific  cliques 
and  dogmas  ;  that  as  a  rule  it  is  now  impossible  to  re- 
ceive an  impartial  opinion  from  one  scientific  man  re- 
specting another  ;  and  that  these  gentlemen,  in  their 
jealousies  and  likenings,  are  evidently  awaiting  some 
one  with  a  spark  of  the  Moliere  genius,  to  cover  them 
before  the  country  with  ridicule  and  contempt,  we  do 
not  think  that  the  Board  is  likely  to  give  too  much  im- 
portance to  this."  (Report,  etc.,  on  the  Organization  of 
Cornell  University.) 

It  may  seem  to  some  a  little  strange  that  we  suggest 
that  Christian  science  furnishes  the  natural  and  most 
efficient  prophylactic  and  cure  for  these  sectarian  nar- 
rownesses and  embitterments.  The  study  of  God  in 
his  relations  to  what  is  known  or  knowable  in  the  uni- 
verse of  spirit  and  matter  certainly  forces  to  a  general 
consideration  of  what  is  known  or  knowable  in  the  sev- 
eral departments  of  science.  It  requires  the  considera- 
tion, superficial  indeed  but  respectful,  of  the  principles 
and  authority  of  every  one  of  the  sciences.  It  forces 
each  expert  to  look  beyond  the  narrow  bounds  of  his 
own  speciality,  and  to  see  how  it  adjusts  itself  to  its 
neighbor.  It  now  and  then  carries  him  up  to  a  point 
of  view  which  overlooks  the  limits  of  the  special  sci- 


222  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

ences,  that  he  may  see  how  they  all  adjust  themselves 
to  that  underlying  philosophy,  which  recognizes  in  some 
sort  their  bond  of  unity — whether  this  bond  is  called 
the  Absolute  of  the  schools,  or  the  living  God  of  the 
people.  In  this  Avay  Theology  becomes,  not  merely  in 
the  language  of  Bacon  the  "  haven  and  Sabbath  of  all 
man's  contemplations,"  but  in  a  certain  sense  the  com- 
mune vinculum  of  the  special  sciences.  It  is  such,  so 
far  as  it  forces  the  devotee  of  each  to  look  beyond  the 
limits  of  his  own  field,  and  to  recognize  the  existence 
and  rights  of  his  neighbors.  It  even  becomes  a  har- 
monizing and  purifying  power,  so  far  as  it  liberalizes 
the  mind  of  each  narrow  devotee,  by  lifting  his  thoughts 
now  and  then  up  to  God,  and  forcing  him  to  recognize 
the  relations  of  his  own  science  to  Him.  Even  if  The- 
ology is  not  cultivated  as  a  science,  but  is  present  to 
the  individual  scientist  and  the  scientific  community 
only  so  far  as  is  required  for  religious  faith  and  feeling, 
it  must  still  quicken  and  widen  their  intellects,  and  ena- 
ble them  to  pursue  their  special  departments  in  a  spirit 
less  narrow  and  more  catholic.  Should  it  be  urged  that 
Theology,  in  its  turn,  is  jealous  of  scientific  progress, 
and  hostile  to  its  freedom,  we  have  no  occasion  to 
affirm  or  deny  that  it  may  be.  All  that  we  contend  for 
is  that  the  influence  of  Christian  theology  and  of  Chris- 
tian faith  upon  the  professed  devotees  of  science  them- 
selves, legitimately  tends  to  make  them  more  profound, 
and  therefore  more  broad  and  catholic  as  philosophers. 
So  far  as  observation  or  history  has  taught  us.  Christian 
Geologists,  Chemists,  Philosophers,  and  Historians  have 
not  loved  scientific  truth  as  truth  any  the  less  purely, 
or  followed  it  any  the  less  boldly  or  bravely  than  those 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  223 

who  were  not  Christian.  Nor  have  they,  when  other 
things  were  equal  been  a  whit  less  diligent,  earnest, 
and  successful,  than  those  who  have  accepted  none  of 
the  so-called  "theological  dogmas  or  Christian  tradi- 
tions." We  venture  to  affirm,  that  when  other  things 
were  equal  they  have  been,  in  every  respect,  better  phi- 
losophers for  being  also  "theologians;"  more  broad 
and  more  profound  in  their  intellectual  activities  and 
achievements,  and  immeasurably  more  noble  and  gen- 
erous in  their  tempers  as  teachers  and  writers,  and  in 
the  intercourse  of  science  and  of  life. 

Faraday  was  no  less  enlightened  and  broad-minded 
as  a  chemical  philosopher  because  he  kept  his  Chris- 
tian faith  warm  and  true  in  the  humblest  fashion.     Alex- 
ander Humboldt  would  have   been  wider-minded,  and 
larger-hearted  as  a  thinker,  had  he  not  so  timidly  shun- 
ned those  religious  avowals  and  religious  sympathies, 
which  his  brother  William  so  freely  expressed.     "  They 
that  deny  a  God,  destroy  man's  nobility,"  says  Bacon, 
and  Atheism  never  fails  to  develop  something  of  the 
ignoble,  whether  in  the  school,  the  saloon,  or  the  beer- 
shop.     No  Atheistic  theory-  or  Pantheistic  philosophy 
was  ever  intellectually  great,  or  aesthetically  noble.     The 
mark  of  intellectual  narrowness  and  conceit  will  be  in- 
effaceably  set  upon  any  college  or  school  of  science  of 
which  the  prevailing  spirit  is  godless  or  anti-Christian. 
The  question  is  not,  as  many  would  represent  it  to 
be,  a  question  between  the  interests  of  theology  and  re- 
ligion on  the  one  hand  and  the  interests  of  scientific 
culture  on  the  other,  but  it  is  a  question  between  the 
most  efficient  methods  of  advancing  both  science  and 
culture.     We  contend,  for  the  reasons   already  given, 


224  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

that  a  religious  college  will,  in  the  long  run,  if  all  else 
is  equal,  do  more  for  science  and  culture  than  the  col- 
lege which  sets  aside  or  makes  little  of  religious  influ- 
ence and  of  Christian  truth.  Nor  is  it  a  question 
whether  science  shall  be  free  and  be  pursued  in  a  lib- 
eral spirit,  or  whether  it  shall  b'e  constrained  by  theo- 
logical prepossessions  and  be  limited  by  Christian  dog- 
mas and  the  Christian  history.  We  contend  that  the 
Christian  investigator  is  pledged  by  the  very  spirit  of 
his  system  to  be  a  bold  and  fearless  follower  of  the 
truth  wherever  the  truth  shall  lead,  even  though  it 
should  lead  him  to  the  rejection  of  any  part  or  the 
whole  of  the  Christian  history  and  theology.  It  is  sim- 
ply whether  true  culture  can  be  effectually  received 
without  moral  culture,  and  whether  moral  culture  can 
be  effectually  enforced  without  religious  motives,  and 
whether  in  a  community  which  is  in  a  condition  of  emi- 
nent exposure  as  well  as  of  especial  promise.  Christian 
influences  ought  not  to  be  employed  with  the  utmost 
possible  efficiency. 

Fifth, — Religious  influences  and  religious  teaching 
should  be  employed  in  colleges,  in  order  to  exclude 
and  counteract  the  atheistic  tendencies  of  much  of 
modern  science,  literature,  and  culture. 

We  have  already  alluded  to  the  advantage  which  sci- 
ence and  culture  receive  when  they  are  truly  Christian. 
We  cannot  overlook  the  fact  that  not  a  little  of  science 
and  culture  at  present  is  conspicuously  anti-Christian. 
Under  whatever  name  this  exclusion  of  Christianity  is 
known  or  under  whatever  covering  it  may  hide  itself,  its 
existence  and  its  presence  can  neither  be  disguised  nor 
denied.     Indeed,  science  in  many  of  its  forms  does  and 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  225 

must,  as  science,  take  a  position  which  is  theistic  or 
anti-theistic,  that  is,  which  in  principle  is  supernatural 
or  anti-supernatural;  which  either  includes  or  excludes 
religious  faith  and  worship.  In  much  of  the  teaching 
that  is  appropriate  to  the  college,  scientific  positions 
must  be  taken  which,  by  logical  necessity,  lead  to  the 
one  or  the  other  of  these  consequences.  Every  edu- 
cated man  now-a-days  must  either  accept  or  reject  the 
ill-disguised  materialism  of  Huxley^  the  cerebralism  of 
Bain^  the  thin  and  vacillating  metaphysics  of  Mill^  the 
evolutionism  of  He?'bert  Spencer^  with  its  demonstrated 
irapossibility  of  a  positive  theism,  or  the  confident  but 
superficial  fatalism  of  the  devotees  of  Nature  or  the 
Absolute.  In  History  every  man  must  take  or  reject 
the  atheistic  fatalism  of  Buckle.  In  Literature,  every 
one  must  accept  or  reject  the  worship  of  Genius,  or  the 
worship  of  God ;  the  self-centered  adoration  of  self-de- 
velopment, or  the  generous  self-forgetfulness  that  has 
made  heroes  and  martyrs  ;  the  imitation  of  Goethe^  in 
his  contentment  with  the  present,  and  his  cool  submis- 
sion to  fate,  or  of  those  Christian  poets  and  critics 
who  have  been  discontented  with  the  best  of  earth,  be- 
cause of  their  ardent  out-reaching  to  what  is  promised 
in  the  future  life.  There  are,  we  know,  multitudes  of 
cultured  youth  who  seek  to  evade  the  necessity  of 
adopting  either  of  these  antagonistic  theories  of  faith 
and  of  life,  under  the  impression  that  true  opinions  and 
fixed  opinions  were  never  so  hard  as  now  to  be  reached, 
that  philosophy,  and  literature,  and  theology  each  re- 
quire and  sanction  uncertainty  of  decision  and  pro- 
tracted inquiry,  and  that  so  much  can  be  said  for 
each  of  these  opposing  sides,  that  he  must  be  a  nar- 


226  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

row  and  audacious  man  who  decides  and  acts  too  soon. 
The  plea  of  freedom  and  tolerance  is  put  in  on  every 
quarter,  and  the  dignity  and  duty  of  positive  opinions 
earnestly  held  is  too  generally  lost  sight  of  among  men 
of  the  most  refined  tastes,  and  the  loftiest  aspirations. 
To  yield  to  this  solicitation  is  for  the  time,  to  be  prac- 
tically materialistic,  atheistic,  and  un-Christian,  and  the 
fashion  of  the  times  in  certain  circles  of  educated  young 
men,  sets  strongly  in  this  direction.  Least  and  last  of 
all,  would  we  have  our  colleges  countenance  or  3deld  to 
su:h  a  fashion!  If  the  higher  institutions  of  learning 
take  an  indifferent  position  with  respect  to  their  influ- 
ence, that  position  must  be  practically  a  negative  posi- 
tion. If  for  fear  of  losing  patronage,  or  in  order  to 
seem  to  be  tolerant  and  just,  they  shall  abstain  from 
exerting  any  positive  religious  influence,  they  must  ab- 
stain altogether  from  teaching  physiology,  psychology, 
metaphysics,  morals,  history,  and  literature,  for  all  of 
these  do  involve  what  is  called  a  theological  bias,  either 
positive  or  negative,  in  whatever  way  they  may  be 
taught.  The  question  is  not  whether  the  college  shall, 
or  shall  not,  teach  theology,  but  what  theology  it  shall 
teach, — theology  according  to  Comte  and  Spencer,  or 
according  to  Bacon  and  Christ,  theology  according  to 
Moses  and  Paul,  or  according  to  Buckle  and  Draper. 
For  a  college  to  hesitate  to  teach  theism  and  Chris- 
tianity is  practically  to  proclaim  that  in  the  opinion  of 
its  guardians  and  teachers  the  evidence  for  and  against, 
is  so  evenly  balanced  that  it  would  be  unfair  for  them  to 
throw  their  influence  on  either  side ;  and  is  in  fact  to 
throw  it  on  the  side  of  materialism,  fatalism,  or  atheism. 
Such  a  position,  under  whatever  fair  pretences  it  is 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  227 

taken,  we  hold  to  be  not  only  dangerous  to  the  com- 
munity in  the  present  crisis  of  opinion,  but  to  be  fear- 
fully and  fatally  criminal.     We  assume  that  the  guard- 
ians and  patrons  of  every  college  in  this  country  are  in 
the  very  largest  proportion  positively  and  earnestly  the- 
istic   and  Christian  in  their  own  faith.     It  is  their  privi- 
lege and  their  duty  to  use  the  means  within  their  own 
hands  to  arrest  and  stem  the  tendency  to  atheism  and 
anti-christianism  which  we  have  described.     They  are 
bound  to  do  this,  not  merely  as  theists  and  as   Chris- 
tians, but  as  the  friends  of  science  and  culture.     This 
they  can  do,  as  we  shall  show,  without  departing  in  the 
least  from  the  utmost  respect  to  the  private  judgment 
of  their  pupils,  and  without  incurring  the  reproach  or 
arousing  the  suspicion  of  sectarianism  or  bigotry.     It  is 
surely  competent  for  the  guardians  of  these  colleges  to 
judge  whether  the  men  whom  they  select  are  or  are  not 
possessed  of  the  tolerance  and  tact  which  may  be  re- 
quired to  avoid  reasonable  occasions  of  offense.     If  all 
classes  of  opinions  should  have  a  hearing,  as  they  ought, 
let  theistic  teachers  be  selected  who  will  represent  fairly 
all  the  atheistic  and  anti-Christian  objections  and  diffi- 
culties,   but    let    not    atheism    or    anti-Christianity    be 
taught  in  any  college  chairs,  either   directly  or  indi- 
rectly, either  in  the  form  of  philosophy  or  theology,  or 
in  the  guise   of  history,   literature,   or  criticism.      To 
claim  that  these  forms  of  opinion  have  a  right  to  be 
heard  is  to  claim  that  any  one  of  the  so-called  Am.eri- 
can   public,   or    any    score,  have   an    inalienable    right 
that  any  shade  of  opinion  which  he  or  they  may  hold, 
should  be  held  and  taught  from  some  one  of  the  chairs 
of  every  colle2:e. 


228  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

We  would  distinguish  here  between  the  college  and 
the  university.  The  disposition  to  confound  the  two  is 
perpetually  appearing  at  every  turn  of  this  discussion, 
and  at  every  step  of  our  progress,  not  merely  as  involv- 
ing an  intellectual  fallacy  of  the  ambiguous  middle,  but 
the  practical  error  of  prescribing  a  course  of  instruction 
for  boys  which  is  only  suitable  for  men.  The  college  is 
a  training  place  for  minds  that  are  yet  immature  in  the 
elements  of  knowledge  and  culture.  The  university  is 
a  teaching  place  for  those  who  are  supposed  to  have 
been  trained  to  the  capacities  and  responsibilities  of  in- 
cipient manhood.  Whatever  freedom  may  be  claimed 
for  the  university  in  teaching  and  learning,  does  not 
sanction  a  similar  freedom  in  the  college.  We  are  not 
prepared  to  allow,  that  even  in  the  university  every 
shade  of  opinion  should  have  an  advocate,  under  the 
countenance  of  its  guardians,  and  with  the  sanction  of 
their  consent.  While  we, would  defend  to  the  last  de- 
gree the  tolerance  of  free  speech  and  free  discussion,  and 
would  enforce  with  the  utmost  scrupulousness  the  cour- 
tesies of  fair  and  dispassionate  controversy,  we  are  not 
required  by  these  duties  to  set  in  the  chair  of  authorized 
teaching,  even  in  a  free  university,  the  representatives 
of  every  shade  of  literary  opinion,  or  of  anti-religious 
philosophy.  We  acknowledge  it  is  not  always  easy  to 
apply  these  general  principles.  It  is  not  easy  to  say 
how  far  a  man's  philosophical  or  religious  creed  should 
be  considered  as  an  objection  to  his  holding  a  college 
or  university  chair,  but  the  principle  iolds  good  that  at 
whatever  sacrifice,  the  college  at  least  should  maintain 
a  positive  religious  influence  and  character,  whatever 
freedom  may  be  allowed  in  the  university. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  229 

President  Eliot  has  touched  upon  this  subject  in  his 
Inaugural  Address  somewhat  more  daintily  than  upon 
many  other  topics.  We  accept  without  reserve  his  re- 
mark, that  "the  word  education  is  a  standing  protest 
against  dogmatic  teaching,"  whatever  subject  matter 
is  taught.  The  President  limits  this  observation  to 
what  he  calls  "  philosophical  subjects."  We  would  ap- 
ply it  with  equal  freedom  to  the  science  of  Theology 
and  even  to  the  inculcation  of  religious  truth  in  col- 
leges. With  some  qualification,  we  find  a  most  impor- 
tant truth  in  the  following  sentence  :  "  The  notion  that 
education  consists  in  the  authoritative  inculcation  of 
what  the  teacher  deems  true  may  be  logical  and  appro- 
priate in  a  convent,  or  a  seminary  for  priests,  but  it  is 
intolerable  in  universities  and  public  schools  from  pri- 
mary to  professional."  It  is  one  thing,  however,  for  a 
college  or  a  university  to  teach  by  "  authoritative  incul- 
cation "  and  altogether  another  thing  for  either  to  as- 
sume in  its  teachings  and  in  the  selection  of  text  books 
and  teachers,  that  some  truths,  scientific,  historic  and 
religious  are  to  be  regarded  as  established  ^nd  perma- 
nent. We  presume  that  President  Eliot  would  have  the 
university  both  presume  and  assume  that  the  Newtonian 
system  is  true  rather  than  the  Ptolemaic.  Possibly,  he 
would  go  further  and  have  it  accept  as  axiomatic  the 
rather  recent  and  as  yet  not  undisputed  doctrines  of 
the  Correlation  of  forces  and  the  Conservation  of  force. 
Doubtless  he  would  proceed  upon  the  assumption  that 
the  axioms  and  demonstrations  of  the  common  geome- 
try are  trustworthy,  though  different  philosophers  still 
prosecute  their  opposing,  and  in  some  cases,  "  bottom- 
less speculations  "  in  respect  to  both.     He  would  also 


230  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

accept  the  methods  of  induction,  although  Kant  would 
make  the  principles  which  underlie  them  the  outgrowth 
of  forms  of  thought  having  simply  subjective  validity,  and 
J.  S.  Mill  would  make  them  the  products  of  "  insepar-* 
able  associations,"  and  Herbert  Spencer,  brain  growths 
that  have  been  evolved  by  a  long  continued  course  of  dif- 
ferentiation and  integration,  and  have  been  transmitted 
by  hereditary  propagation.  Surely  it  is  not  dogmatic,  to 
assume  in  the  same  sense  and  for  the  practical  direction 
of  our  teaching,  that  the  Christian  theism,  and  the  Chris- 
tian history,  and  the  Christian  ethics  are  still  "  in  force" 
and  that  they  are  likely  to  be  permanent,  and  in  this 
belief  to  consecrate  to  Christ  and  the  Church  a  univer- 
sity designed  for  liberal  teaching.  We  may  presume 
that  President  Eliot  means  something  of  the  sort  in  the 
rather  equivocal  observation  that  "  the  student  should 
be  shown  what  is  still  iii  force  of  institutions  or  philo- 
sophies mainly  outgrown.''  If  the  Christian  theism, 
the  Christian  ethics,  the  Christian  history,  and  the 
Christian  civilization  may  be  allowed  that  recognition 
in  the  instructions  and  arrangements  of  any  university 
which  is  accorded  to  the  Newtonian  system  and  the 
Baconian  induction,  there  will  be  no  question  that  that 
"university  in  our  day  serves  Christ  and  the  Church." 
It  cannot  be  objected  that  ethical  and  Christian  science 
are  to  be  excepted  because  they  rest  on  "bottomless 
speculations  "  by  any  one  who  is  aware  that  the  nature 
of  matter  and  of  spirit  as  well  as  the  fundamental  prin- 
ciples of  mathematics  and  of  all  scientific  processes 
and  results  are  variously  defined  and  defended  in 
the  speculations  of  those  who  none  the  less  agree  in 
the    conviction    that   they    are    established    facts    and 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  231 

truths.  We  agree  most  cordially  with  President  Eiiot 
that :  "  The  worthy  fruit  of  academic  culture  is  an  open 
mind,  trained  to  careful  thinking,  instructed  in  the 
methods  of  philosophic  investigation,  acquainted  in  a 
general  way  with  the  accumulated  thought  of  past  gen- 
erations and  penetrated  with  humility.  It  is  thus  that 
the  university  in  our  day  serves  Christ  and  the  Church." 
Thus^  indeed ;  but  not  only  thus ;  for  the  reasons 
already  given.  Why  it  may  and  should  do  more,  we 
need  not  explain  a  second  time. 

These  thoughts  lead  us  to  our  next  inquir}^,  by  what 
means  can  the  colleges  maintain  a  religious  character  t 
What  methods  of  influence  may  be  employed  ?  and 
within  what  limits  may  these  be  applied  }  We  cannot, 
as  we  have  just  suggested,  be  required  to  discuss  or  to 
answer  these  and  the  like  questions  any  more  than  when 
we  lay  down  positive  fundamental  principles  and  rules  of 
duty,  we  can  anticipate  all  the  refinements  of  casuistry. 
The  following  duties  are  clear.  The  college  should 
maintain  public  Christian  worship,  and  this  should  be 
conducted  in  an  earnest  and  positive  manner.  It  should 
give  positive  Christian  instruction  concerning  the  evi- 
dence and  truths  of  theism  and  Christianity.  It  should 
by  the  influence  and  activities  of  its  teachers  favor  an 
active  Christian  life.  It  should  pervade  all  the  teach- 
ing which  admits  it  with  a  distinct  and  earnest  recog- 
nition of  Christian  truth.  At  the  same  time,  as  we 
have  already  explained,  the  college  is  professedly  and 
primarily  a  place  for  intellectual  culture.  To  intellect- 
ual culture  the  chief  energies  of  instructors  and  pupils 
should  be  given.  All  the  conditions  required  for  sue- 
cessful  study  should  be  furnished.     Among  these  are 


232  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

prominent,  perfect  tolerance  of  every  form  of  religious 
opinion,  encouragement  to  the  utmost  freedom  of  read- 
ing and  inquiry,  and  the  inculcation  of  the  bravest  confi- 
dence in  the  authority  of  evidence,  and  the  application 
of  a  critical  judgment. 

The  point  of  the  greatest  delicacy  is  one  in  respect 
to  which  no  fixed  rules  can  be  established,  and  that  is 
how  far  the  religious  opinions  and  character  of  a  per- 
son should  be  considered  in  estimating  his  qualifica- 
tions for  the  post  of  teacher.  Such  a  question  as  this 
cannot  be  settled  in  a  general  way,  or  by  prescribed 
formulae.  There  are  manifold  peculiarities  of  personal 
character,  besides  erudition  or  even  aptness  to  teach, 
which  render  an  individual  a  very  suitable  or  a  very 
unsuitable  member  of  a  college  faculty.  There  are 
many  well  instructed,  and  very  eminent  men,  who  are 
withal  very  earnest  religionists,  who  by  the  very  indis- 
cretion and  overplus  of  their  zeal,  are  totally  disquali- 
fied for  a  place  in  a  college.  There  are  men,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  sensitiveness  of  whose  conscience,  and 
the  hesitation  of  whose  temper,  make  their  "  inquiring 
spirit "  and  their  "  honest  doubts "  express  infinitely 
more  of  religious  earnestness  and  of  religious  power, 
than  the  plump  and  unhesitating  orthodoxy  of  many  a 
coarse-minded  and  hard  favored  dogmatist.  There  are 
some  chairs  the  instruction  of  which  cannot  be  greatly 
affected  by  the  faith  or  the  character  of  the  incumbent. 
There  are  other  chairs,  which  an  anti-Christian  sophist 
or  a  velvet-footed  infidel  might  pervert  to  the  most  dis- 
astrous uses.  If  the  principle  and  duty  be  acknowl- 
edged for  which  we  contend,  the  application  may  be 
safely  entrusted  to  the  wise  discretion  of  those  whose 
business  it  is  to  decide  upon  individual  cases. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  233 

Against  the  view  which  we  have  taken,  manifold  ob- 
jections may  be  offered.  One  of  the  most  formidable  is, 
that  if  the  colleges  are  positively  religious  institutions, 
they  must  be  necessarily  sectarian.  This  does  not  fol- 
low. A  sectarian  or  denominational  college  is  a  col- 
lege conducted  with  reference  to  the  interests  of  a  single 
denomination.  Its  distinctive  doctrines,  its  forms  of 
worship,  its  peculiar  religious  spirit,  are  all  made  promi- 
nent, as  fundamentally  Christian,  as  alone  authorized, 
or  as  preeminently  excellent.  Such  colleges  may  some- 
times be  needed  for  the  prestige  of  the  denomination,  or 
to  guard  its  youth  against  being  drawn  from  its  fold. 
The  lamentable  and  unjustifiable  divisions  among 
Christians  may  therefore  involve  the  necessity  of  a 
few  colleges  that  are  distinctively  and  avowedly  secta- 
rian. But  the  foundation  or  the  conducting  of  a  col- 
lege in  the  interests  of  a  single  denomination  has  not 
generally  been  successful,  for  the  reason  that  the  cul- 
ture which  colleges  impart  is,  in  its  nature,  liberalizing ; 
and  that  to  Christian  earnestness,  when  instructed  by 
Christian  learning,  the  exclusiveness  of  any  Protestant 
sect  becomes  almost  invariably  distasteful.  Just  in  pro- 
portion as  the  college  becomes  eminent  in  its  culture, 
just  in  that  proportion  does  it  lose  sight  of  any  single 
sect  and  denomination,  and  take  into  its  larger  view 
the  common  relations  of  all  to  culture  and  to  Christ. 
A  truly  religious  college  cannot,  in  our  opinion,  be  emi- 
nently sectarian,  and  yet  be  true  to  its  appropriate  func- 
tion, by  yielding  itself  to  the  influence  of  the  science, 
art,  and  culture  which  it  is  appointed  to  promote.  How- 
ever strictly  it  may  be  held  by  its  charter  to  the  name 
or  the  organization  of  any  single  denomination,  it  will 


234  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

outgrow  all  narrowing  relations  to  it,  or  make  its  de- 
nomination outgrow  them,  just  as  fast  as  it  grows  at  all. 

If  this  be  so,  then  why  should  it  be  attached  to  any 
one  denomination, — why  should  it  not  be  the  common 
property  of  many,  or  the  common  property  of  none  ? 
We  reply,  a  college  in  which  several  denominations 
have  a  partial  interest,  will  inevitably  be  divided  and 
dishonored  by  ignoble  sectarian  strifes.  The  several 
denominations  which  hold  it  in  common  will  regard 
each  other  with  that  "  eternal  vigilance  "  which  in  such 
cases  easily  degenerates  into  perpetual  suspicion  ;  "its 
officers  will  be  elected,  and  its  policy  will  be  deter- 
mined, with  a  judgment  divided  between  the  interests 
of  the  college  and  the  interests  of  the  sect.  Some  of 
the  most  disgraceful  exhibitions  of  sectarian  wrangling 
and  craft  of  a  religious  sort  that  this  country  has  ever 
witnessed,  have  occurred  in  the  history  of  colleges 
which  have  been  the  joint  property  of  two  or  three 
denominations. 

But  why  not  let  them  be  the  property  of  none }  This 
can  only  happen  as  the  board  of  trust  and  management 
is  made  up  partially  or  wholly  of  members  who  have  no 
religious  preferences  at  all.  Or  why  not  solve  the  prob- 
lem by  throwing  the  college  upon  the  endowments  and 
the  care  of  the  State  ?  The  objection  to  either  of  these 
arrangements,  so  far  as  the  religious  relations  and  char- 
acter of  the  college  is  concerned,  is  that  it  will  immedi- 
ately become  the  object  of  the  ambition,  or  the  victim 
of  the  strife  of  some  one  or  more  religious  sects,  with 
the  never  ending  discussions  which  must  inevitably  fol- 
low ;  or  it  will  have  no  religious  character  at  all.  In 
the  present   divided  condition  of  Christendom,   there 


AND     THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC. 


235 


seems  to  be  no  solution  of  the  problem,  except  the  one 
which  has  been  accepted  in  this  country,  viz.,  that  the 
college  should  be  in  the  hands  of  some  single  religious 
denomination,  in  order  to  secure  unity  and  effect  to  its 
religious  character  and  influence,  and  that  it  should  be 
preserv^ed  from  sectarian  bias  and  illiberality,  by  its  re- 
sponsibility to  the  community  which  it  would  influence, 
and  the  enlightened  and  catholic  influences  of  the  cul- 
ture to  which  it  is  devoted. 

We  see  no  alternative  between  this  and  the  abandon- 
ment of  any  special  and  eflicient  religious  influence  L  e., 
the  complete  secularization  of  the  college.  For  this 
alternative  many  leading  minds  are  already  prepared  ; 
more  than  are  ready  to  acknowledge.  There  are  not  a 
few  who  contrast  what  they  call  the  people's  colleges,  or 
the  State  colleges,  with  what  they  choose  to  designate  as 
sectarian  colleges,  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  latter, — 
who  do  not  desire  that  the  college  should  have  any 
positively  Christian  influence,  either  because  they  do 
not  believe  it  has  any  place  there,  or  because  they 
would  attract  students  from  those  who  have  no  positive 
religious  faith  for  themselves,  or  desire  none  for  their 
children.  That  these  views  are  incorrect  we  have  en- 
deavored to  prove,  by  our  argument.  We  have  only  to 
add,  that  as  between  terms  of  reproach,  if  sectarian  is 
fairly  charged  on  the  one  side,  godless  may  be  as  fairly 
retorted  on  the  other,  and  if  a  purely  secular  college 
will  attract  a  certain  portion  of  the  community,  posi- 
tively religious  colleges  will  attract  another.  If  the 
two  sorts  of  colleges  are  fairly  tried,  the  fruits  of  the 
two  will  be  made  manifest.  It  will  be  seen  after  a  gen- 
eration, whether  Christianized  science,  art,  and  litera- 


236  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

ture,  has  any  advantage  over  that  which  is  un-Christian 
or  non-Christian  ;  whether  the  education  and  culture 
that  are  elevated  by  the  Christian  faith,  have  any  advan- 
tage over  those  which  are  secular  and  atheistic.  One 
thing  is  certain,  that  all  the  experiments  which  have 
been  tried  in  this  country  to  conduct  institutions  of 
learning  without  Christian  worship  and  Christian  influ- 
ences, have  failed ;  that  all  the  so-called  State  colleges 
have,  in  some  sort,  been  forced  to  adopt,  either  directly 
or  indirectly,  the  same  methods  of  religious  influence 
which  are  employed  in  the  Christian  colleges ;  that  in 
the  choice  of  their  officers,  they  have  largely  given  the 
preference  to  men  of  positive  and  earnest  Christian 
faith,  for  their  greater  usefulness  as  teachers,  and  theif 
greater  acceptableness  to  the  community.  Those  who 
believe  that  the  Christian  argument  has  been  nearly  ex- 
hausted, or  that  the  Christian  history  has  been  demon- 
strated to  be  impossible,  and  must  be  regarded  as  prac- 
tically false, — that  the  Christ  of  the  New  Testament  is 
but  a  human  idea,  with  no  personal  authority,  will  of 
course,  in  the  light  of  their  advanced  opinions,  be  wil- 
ling to  repeat  the  experiment  under  what  they  consider 
more  favorable  auspices,  but  they  cannot  ask  those  to 
believe  in  its  success,  who  hold  another  theory  of  re- 
ligion and  Christianity. 

Those  who  believe  that  Christian  truth  and  the 
Christian  history  are  divine  in  their  origin  and  perma- 
nent in  their  influence  will  do  well  to  remember,  that  a 
Christian  college  must  be  amply  provided  with  all  the 
appliances  of  Science  and  Literature  in  order  to  be  ef- 
ficient and  successful  in  the  service  of  either  Chris- 
tianity or  culture.  Its  scholarship  must  be  varied  and 
profound.     The  several  departments  of  knowledge  must 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  237 

be  represented  by  able  men.  Its  Libraries  must  be  re- 
plenished with  the  stores  of  the  oldest  learning  and  the 
contributions  of  recent  research  and  speculation.  The 
spirit  of  every  such  college  should  be  catholic,  liberal, 
and  tolerant,  while  it  should  be  beUeving,  devout,  and 
fervent.  The  culture  which  it  imparts  should  be  in  no 
respect  inferior  to  that  which  the  country  or  the  tim.es 
demand.  The  friends  of  Christianity  very  readily  ac- 
knowledge the  obligation  to  provide  institutions  of 
learning  for  the  service  of  the  Christian  Church.  They 
are  not  always  aware  that  the  duty  is  equally  incumbent 
to  place  the  institutions  in  the  foremost  rank  in  respect 
to  the  thoroughness  and  perfection  of  the  culture  which 
they  impart. 


238  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


XIT. 

THE    GUARDIANSHIP   AND    CONTROL    OF  THE 
COLLEGE. 

We  are  reminded  here  of  another  topic  which  has 
been  more  or  less  distinctly  discussed  by  and  before  the 
American  public — whether  the  instruction  and  government 
of  the  American  colleges  have  not  been  too  largely  intrusted 
to  clergymeji  ?  Clergymen,  it  is  said,  must,  by  the  very 
nature  and  influence  of  their  profession,  be  essentially 
artificial  and  one-sided.  They  cannot  and  they  ought 
not  to  be  "  men  of  the  world"  in  the  good  sense  of  the 
phrase,  that  is,  they  cannot  judge  of  men  as  they  are, 
with  fairness  and  discrimination,  for  the  reason  that  all 
men  present  themselves  to  their  view  in  constrained  at- 
titudes and  under  artificial  lights,  and  they  in  their 
turn  must  look  at  men  through  highly  refracting  media. 
They  usually  want  tact  and  delicacy  in  the  management 
of  men.  They  do  not  approach  them  with  that  skill 
which  can  only  be  acquired  by  a  large  experience  under 
a  great  variety  of  circumstances.  They  are  also  not 
usually  good  men  of  business,  and  ought,  therefore,  not 
to  be  intrusted  with  the  investment  and  care  of  the 
large  sums  of  money  which  are  required  for  the  support 
of  a  college.  They  are  not  familiar  with  the  advance- 
ments of  modern  science,  and  unlikely  to  be  abreast 
with  the  culture  which  is  required  by  the  present  gen- 
eration.    For  these  and  other  reasons  it  is  urged  that 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  239 

they  ought  not  to  constitute  so  large  a  portion  of  the 
boards  of  instruction  and  management  as  they  have 
done  in  the  majority  of  our  colleges. 

We  are  not  prepared  to  assert  that  in  some  cases 
there  is  not  reason  for  these  criticisms.  But  we  can  as- 
sert with  considerable  confidence  that  it  would  be  diffi- 
cult to  show  in  any  individual  case  that  where  clerg)-men 
have  failed,  either  as  members  of  a  college  faculty  or 
of  a  board  of  trustees,  layman  would  have  succeeded. 
The  relation  of  one  of  these  boards  to  the  other  is  so 
different  in  different  colleges  that  it  is  almost  impossi- 
ble to  reason  from  failure  or  success  in  one  case  to 
failure  or  success  in  another.  In  some  colleges  the  fac- 
ulty have  little  influence  in  the  policy  and  appoint- 
ments. In  others  one  or  two  individuals,  either  lay  or 
clerical,  very  largely  determine  both.  The  success  or 
failure  of  many  institutions  seems  to  be  occasioned  by 
excellences  or  defects  which  are  individual  rather  than 
professional. 

There  are  several  obvious  reasons,  however,  why 
clergymen  have  been,  and  must  still  continne  to  be,  in- 
trusted very  largely  with  duties  and  responsibilities  of 
this  kind.  In  the  first  place,  most  of  the  colleges  have 
originated  in  the  most  thankless  and  self-sacrificmg  ser- 
vices. To  services  of  this  kind  clergymen  are  conse- 
crated by  the  vows  and  the  spirit  of  their  profession. 
The  labor,  self-denial,  and  disinterested  toil  which  have 
been  required  to  lay  the  foundations  and  rear  the  su- 
perstructure of  the  most  successful  colleges  of  this 
country  cannot  be  too  easily  estimated.  To  a  very 
large  extent  these  have  been  endured  and  rendered  by 
clergymen.     The  care,   inquir}^,  invention,  and  corres- 


240  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

pondence,  the  personal  toil  and  sacrifice  which  devolve 
upon  those  who  act  as  trustees  of  an  infant  and  often 
of  a  well-established  college  are  such  that  few  persons 
except  clergymen  are  willing  to  undertake  them.  Cler- 
gymen may  not  always  be  good  men  of  business,  but 
they  generally  know  who  are  such,  and  have  generally 
the  good  sense  and  good  feeling  to  ask  the  advice  and 
to  defer  to  the  decisions  of  those  who  are,  which  is 
more  than  can  always  be  said  of  laymen  who  are  called 
to  duties  and  trusts  to  which  they  are  not  competent. 
Hence,  with  the  best  intentions  and  with  far  greater 
experience  in  affairs  generally,  laymen  may  fail  where 
clergymen  succeed.  As  to  defect  of  tact  or  power  of 
adaptation,  especially  in  the  management  of  men,  an 
excess  of  tact  has  not  unfrequently  been  charged  upon 
the  clergy.  Clerical  art  and  finesse  have  in  not  a  few 
cases  become  proverbial  as  grounds  of  reproach. 

Clergymen  are  far  more  commonly  interested  in  mat- 
ters of  education  than  laymen,  by  reason  of  a  certain 
breadth  of  culture  and  generosity  of  disposition  which 
are  the  results  of  Christian  science.  Though  the  idola 
tribii's  may  exact  from  them  a  devotion  which  is  some- 
times narrow  and  exclusive,  yet  their  profession  is  from 
its  very  nature,  as  we  have  shown,  the  most  liberalizing 
of  all,  from  the  common  relation  it  involves  to  other 
branches  of  knowledge  and  from  the  habit  of  seeking 
for  the  foundations  of  truth  which  the  study  of  God 
and  religion  induces.  It  is  but  the  simple  truth  to  say 
that  there  is  many  a  country  clergyman,  whose  income 
is  counted  by  hundreds  where  that  of  his  classmate 
lawyer  and  judge  is  counted  by  thousands,  who  knows 
incalculably  more  of  science  as  such,  and  of  the  way  to 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  24I 

learn  and  to  teach  it  than  the  aforesaid  judge  or  la\\yer 
whose  reputation  is  the  very  highest  in  his  profession. 
The  professional  studies  of  the  clerg\-man  do  also  very 
emphatically  involve  and  cultivate  a  sympathy  with  lit- 
erature of  all  kinds.  The  practice  of  composition  and 
of  public  speaking  upon  elevated  themes,  involves  more 
or  less  interest  in  the  study  of  language  and  in  works 
of  imaginative  literature.  The  clergy  as  such  have,  at 
least  in  this  countr}^,  a  more  pronounced  and  catholic 
literary  taste  than  the  members  of  any  other  profession. 
They  constitute,  indeed,  to  a  very  large  extent,  the  lit- 
erary class — the  class  who  furnish  most  frequently  pub- 
lic addresses,  essays,  reviews,  and  pamphlets.  Educa- 
ted lawyers,  physicians,  and  merchants  write  very  little 
in  comparison  with  them,  and  are  much  less  frequently 
readers  beyond  the  range  of  their  own  profession. 

The  reason  why  clerg}^men  are  so  generally  selected 
as  professors  and  teachers  in  colleges,  is  two-fold  : 
First,  that  the  men  best  qualified  by  special  culture  are 
oftener  found  in  the  clerical  profession  ;  and,  second, 
that  the  profession  of  teaching  is  akin  to  that  of  the 
clergyman  in  the  smallness  of  its  pay  and  the  unselfish 
patience  which  it  involves.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not 
usually  true,  so  far  as  we  have  observed,  that  there  is 
not  a  sufficiently  large  number  of  laymen  in  the  facul- 
ties and  boards  of  trust  to  correct  the  one-sidedness 
and  to  supplement  the  defects  of  their  clerical  col- 
leagues. We  have  never  observed  that  there  was  in 
such  boards  any  jealousy  of  lay  cooperation,  any  dispo- 
sition to  foster  a  clerical  spirit  or  any  one-sided  results 
from  clerical  supervision.  The  cloistered,  scholastic, 
and  pedantic  influences  of  the  college  which  are  some- 

II 


242  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

times  complained  of,  so  far  as  there  are  any,  usually 
proceed  from  lay  professors,  who  have  never  known 
anything  but  a  scholar's  life.  The  doctores  twibratiles  of 
the  American  colleges  are  not  infrequently  laymen. 

The  relatmis  of  the  colleges  to  the  commimity  are  those 
of  partially  endowed  be?iejlceni  institutions,  which  are  de- 
signed to  confer  important  benefits  upon  the  young. 
For  the  faithful  and  successful  discharge  of  their  duties, 
the  instructors  are  directly  responsible  to  the  mana- 
gers  or  trustees,  and  both  are  indirectly  responsible 
to  the  public.  Many  of  the  beneficent  results  which 
these  institutions  propose  to  accomplish  are  not  imme- 
diately obvious.  The  adaptation  of  the  means  to  the 
ends  fproposed  is  not  always  easy  to  be  seen,  and 
as  a  general  rule  can  be  judged  and  estimated  only  by 
a  few.  When  the  results  do  not  seem  to  be  the  best 
conceivable,  it  is  not  always  easy  to  say  whether  any 
other  training  or  appliances  would  have  wrought  results 
so  good.  The  training  of  an  individual  youth  in  a  lib- 
eral spirit  to  the  capacity  and  the  desire  to  be  a  useful 
public  man,  either  in  the  exercise  of  a  profession  or  in 
any  leading  position,  is  a  matter  concerning  which  the 
experience  of  the  past  should  be  most  cautiously  re- 
garded. It  should  be  committed  to  enterprising  men, 
indeed,  who  are  not  afraid  of  innovation  or  reform,  but 
who  are  also  far-seeing,  thoughtful,  and  self-relying. 
Extemporaneous  and  flippant  dogmatism  and  ambi- 
tious and  satirical  criticism  by  bold  adventurers  or  un- 
cultivated Philistines  are  especially  out  of  place  in  dis- 
cussions concerning  such  trusts  or  the  persons  who 
manage  them.  They  do  not  deserve  to  be  heeded  ex- 
cept for  their  power  to  mislead  the   confiding   public. 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  243 

Though,  in  one  sense,  the  managers  of  colleges  need 
not  ask  the  advice  of  the  public,  because  they  know 
and  understand,  better  than  the  public  can,  the  duties 
with  which  they  are  intrusted  ;  yet,  in  another  sense, 
they  ought  never  to  forget  that,  if  they  do  not  retain 
the  confidence  of  the  public,  it  will  be  impossible  for 
them  to  be  of  service  to  the  public.  If  the  community 
does  not  value  the  training  and  the  instruction  which  they 
give,  they  cannot  benefit  it,  and  they  might  as  well  not 
exist.  And  yet,  as  we  have  observed,  the  public  are 
not  competent  to  judge  directly  of  many,  not  to  say  of 
most,  of  the  questions  which  are  to  be  decided. 

It  is  most  fortunate  that,  under  these  circumstances, 
the  colleges  have  always  had  one  resource.  They  have 
usually  been  able  to  rely  upon  their  own  graduates. 
These  act  as  internuncii  between  the  colleges  and  the 
public  whenever  there  is  occasion  for  explanation  or 
danger  of  misunderstanding.  In  times  of  a  conflict 
between  the  two,  the  alumni  of  a  powerful  college  are, 
indeed,  as  "  arrows  in  the  hand  of  a  mighty  man." 
"  Happy  is  the  '  college'  that  hath  its  quiver  full  of 
them  ;  they  shall  speak  with  the  enemies  in  the  gatej^ 
The  graduates  of  the  American  colleges  are  their  glory 
and  their  strength.  They  are  their  glory,  so  far  as  they 
show,  by  mental  power,  by  varied  acquirements,  and 
accomplished  culture,  what  their  Ahfta  Mater  has  done 
for  them,  either  by  her  unwelcome  restraints  and  hard 
duties,  or  by  those  influences  that  were  more  genial  in 
their  operation  and  are  more  delightful  in  the  remem- 
brance. They  are  their  strength,  so  far  as  they  are  dis- 
tinctly conscious  of  the  benefits  which  they  derived 
from  the  college,  and  are  forward  to  acknowledge  them. 


244  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

The  colleges  of  this  country  have  nothing  to  fear,  so 
long  as  the  majority  of  their  pupils  continue  to  confide 
in  their  systems  of  discipline  and  instruction,  and  in 
the  men  who  administer  them.  While  it  is  true  that 
colleges  and  universities,  all  the  world  over,  are  objects 
of  special  regard  to  those  whom  they  have  trained,  the 
colleges  of  America  have  the  strongest  conceivable  hold 
upon  the  affections  of  their  pupils,  from  the  strength 
of  the  associations  which  are  here  fixed  and  interwoven, 
as  well  as  from  the  sense  of  the  value  of  the  discipline 
here  received.  These  alumni,  it  is  true,  retain  and 
somewhat  liberally  exercise  the  traditional  privileges  of 
all  children,  freely  to  criticise  the  ways  of  the  house- 
hold. They  retain  vivid  recollections  of  the  tedium  of 
many  of  the  college  tasks,  and  the  unwelcome  charac- 
ter of  some  of  its  discipline.  Nor  do  they  always  weigh 
the  import  of  what  they  say,  or  are  they  always  entirely 
confident  of  the  justice  of  the  criticisms  which  they  un- 
thinkingly utter.  Sometimes  their  fault-finding  is  but 
the  result  of  their  jealous  regard  for  the  honor  of  their 
college  and  an  indirect  expression  of  the  fervor  of  their 
zeal  for  its  more  abundant  prosperity. 

The  alumni  are  greatly  mistaken  if  they  ever  suppose 
that  the  trustees  or  faculty  are  indifferent  to  their  good 
opinion,  or  delight  to  trifle  with  it.  This  good  opinion 
they  are  not  only  most  desirous  to  gain,  but  they  are 
sensible  that  if  they  lose  it  they  must  lose  their  hold 
upon  the  public  at  large.  At  the  same  time,  as  honest 
men,  they  will  be  more  anxious  to  deserve  than  to  gain 
their  favor,  and  they  would  act  most  out  of  character 
should  they  strive  to  attain  it  by  any  species  of  educational 
charlatanry  or  any  varnish  of  superficial  culture.     They 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  245 

are  not  only  willing  to  hear,  but  they  are  most  ready  to 
regard  whatever  suggestions  may  be  made  in  respect  to 
any  improvements  in  the  college  system.  But  some  of 
them  are  not  prepared  to  initiate  or  follow  any  headlong 
rivalship  for  numbers  which  may  be  proposed,  or  to 
sacrifice  their  matured  convictions  at  the  dictation  of 
editorial  demagogues,  or  the  direction  of  the  self-styled 
styled  "  spirit  of  the  age." 

It  is  their  duty  to  desire,  and  we  believe  they  do  de- 
sire to  be  brought  into  intimate  communication  and 
sympathy  with  their  graduates.  They  wish  that  the 
graduates  themselves  should  feel  that  the  college  is 
their  own  ;  not  as  their  property  for  capricious  experi- 
ments and  hazardous  speculations,  but  as  their  trust  for 
wise  support  and  administration  in  behalf  of  the  inter- 
ests of  their  country  and  of  mankind.  The  impor- 
tance of  the  colleges,  as  organized  centers  of  the  most 
valuable  species  of  power,  cannot  be  estimated  too  ex- 
travagantly. The  man  who  feels  any  obligation  to  act 
upon  his  fellow-men  for  their  good  can  scarcely  find  a 
place  in  which  his  influence  can  be  so  extensively  felt 
with  respect  to  the  most  important  interests  as  through 
a  college  that  has  a  mature  and  established  growth. 
Oxford  and  Cambridge  are  more  powerful  in  England 
at  this  moment  than  the  Lords,  the  Commons,  and  the 
Queen  together.  As  permanent  and  enduring  institu- 
tions, they  are  more  lasting  than  dynasties,  and  have 
survived  revolutions.  If  the  alumni  of  the  American 
colleges  could  but  appreciate  the  dignity  and  duty  of 
this  trust,  the  country  and  mankind  would  have  occa- 
sion to  bless  them,  and  they  would  have  occasion  to 
rejoice  in  their  own  wise  beneficence. 


240  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

The  wish  has  been  expressed  that  this  real  trust, 
which  is,  in  fact,  committed  to  the  alumni,  should  be 
assumed  by  them  in  form  —  that  they  should  under- 
take the  actual  management  of  the  concerns  of  the 
colleges,  by  electing  their  trustees  in  whole  or  part. 
Such  a  measure  has  been  in  ^part  introduced  at  Har- 
vard, and  an  election  is  now  held  at  every  Commence- 
ment, by  which  a  class  of  tlie  board  of  overseers  are 
chosen  by  the  direct  votes  of  the  graduates  who  are 
present.  The  movement  in  Harvard  did  not  originate, 
as  we  understand  the  matter,  in  any  special  desire  of 
the  alumni  to  take  a  more  direct  part  in  its  administra- 
tion, but  it  was  adopted  to  deliver  the  college  from  the 
interference  of  a  troublesome  class  of  political  and  sec- 
tarian intermeddlers  who  were  constantly  introducing 
into  their  deliberations,  held  in  public,  all  manner  of 
uncomfortable  insinuations  and  appeals,  intended  quite 
as  much  for  their  effect  upon  political  and  religious  par- 
ties as  for  any  application  to  the  internal  economy  of  the 
university.  This  board  of  overseers,  though  a  numerous 
body,  has  only  a  confirming  and  visitorial  power.  The 
corporation  of  the  university,  as  is  well  known,  is  a 
very  small  body,  and  has  within  its  hands  the  chief,  and 
as  some  contend  the  sole,  authority.  This  remains  in- 
tact upon  its  old  historic  foundation.  But  the  move- 
ment thus  initiated  has  been  imitated  by  other  colleges 
and  propositions  have  been  made, — and  in  one  instance, 
at  least,  adopted,  to  give  to  the  alumni  a  similar  power  of 
electing  by  classes,  at  intervals,  a  part  or  the  whole  of 
a  board  of  trustees.  By  some,  such  participation  is 
claimed  as  a  right,  by  others  it  is  recommended  as  expe- 
dient.    We  do  not  propose  to  discuss  this  question  here, 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  247 

for  any  arguments  concerning  the  principle  or  the  de- 
tails of  such  a  measure  would  be  entirely  out  of  place. 
We  have  mentioned  it  as  one  among  many  indications 
that  the  alumni  of  many  of  the  colleges  are  awakening 
to  a  more  lively  interest  in  their  concerns,  and  we  hope 
to  a  more  serious  sense  of  personal  responsibility  for 
their  prosperity.  We  believe  that  the  discussion  of  this 
and  of  every  other  subject  which  respects  their  external 
or  their  internal  relations  will  be  for  their  good.  We 
deprecate  only  that  this  or  any  other  question  should 
be  discussed  with  the  spirit  or  debased  by  the  arts  of 
demagogues,  or  that  the  results  of  any  discussion 
should  tend  to  drive  from  these  venerable  seats  of  sound 
learning  the  studies  and  the  arts  which  make  men  sol- 
idly great  or  nobly  good.  That  college  does  not  deseft'e 
to  live  which  would  not  welcome  the  coujisel  and  accept  the 
guidance  of  the  choicest  of  its  sons.  We  believe,  more- 
over, that  there  are  few  American  colleges  which  have 
any  character  or  age  of  which  the  majority  of  its  trus- 
tees are  not  its  own  graduates.  The  question  is  simply 
whether  these  boards  are  not  at  present  so  organized 
as  to  secure  an  adequate  representation  of  the  feelings 
and  judgment  of  the  alumni.  It  is  a  still  more  serious 
question,  whether  the  uncertainties  of  a  chance  nomi- 
nation, from  a  constituency  that  changes  every  year, 
would  not  on  trial  give  eminent  dissatisfaction  to  the 
alumni — whether  it  would  not  awaken  jealousies  and 
strifes  which  would  divide  their  opinions  and  weal<:en 
their  affections  instead  of  uniting  their  efforts  and  kind- 
ling their  enthusiasm. 

A  self-perpetuating  board  of  trustees,  resting  on  some 
historic  basis,  with  a  traditional  spirit,  acting  in  rela- 


'248  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

tions  of  confidence  and  free  communication  with  the 
board  of  instructors,  cannot  be  ignorant  of  the  wishes 
and  feehngs  of  the  alumni,  and  cannot,  if  they  would, 
refuse  to  be  affected  by  them.  The  chance  nomination 
and  election  of  one  or  more  representatives  by  a  body 
which  is  organized  for  an  hour,  and  changes  its  members 
very  considerably  every  year,  might  open  the  way  to 
constant  dissatisfaction  and  personal  discussion,  and 
should  not  be  resorted  to  except  after  grave  delibera- 
tion and  inquiry.  The  alumni  of  an  institution  which 
has  prospered  under  any  system  of  organization  and 
government,  may  well  be  content  with  its  constitution 
and  history.  If  any  college  has  failed  to  explain  its 
condition  fully  and  frankly  to  its  alumni,  from  motives 
of  delicacy  or  for  any  other  reason,  let  it  freely  and 
frequently  open  to  the  whole  body  its  position,  its  pol- 
icy, its  wants,  and  its  fears,  with  the  frankness  and  free- 
dom which  are  suitable  to  a  family  gathering,  and  it 
cannot  fail  to  command  the  confidence  and  to  receive 
the  sympathy  of  all  the  generous  and  noble-minded  of 
its  sons. 

Criticisms  and  complaints  are  also  beginning  to  be 
heard  in  another  direction.  It  is  contended  that  in 
this  country  the  colleges  have  unwittingly  departed  from 
the  original  signification  of  Fellows  ;  these,  in  the  col- 
leges of  England,  having  been  originally  resident  and 
charged  with  the  duty  of  governing,  as  well  of  teaching 
the»college.  It  is  urged  that,  in  substituting  for  such 
Fellows  a  body  of  persons,  who  may  themselves  have 
been  uneducated  at  a  college,  and  many  of  whom  have 
had  little  or  no  experience  of  its  instruction  and  gov- 
ernment, to  the  exclusion  of  all  the  faculty  except  the 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  249 

president,  we  have  weakened  too  greatly  the  influence 
of  the  instructors.  This  is  not  the  first  time  that  this 
doctrine  has  been  urgently  enforced.  About  the  year 
172 1  an  attempt  was  made  to  oust  the  non-resident  Fel- 
lows of  Harvard  College  and  to  supply  their  places  by 
an  election  from  the  professors  or  tutors.  It  resulted 
in  a  serious  and  protracted  quarrel.  In  1824  a  me- 
morial was  addressed  to  the  corporation  of  the  same 
University,  signed  by  all  the  professors,  among  whom 
were  Henry  Ware,  Andrews  Norton,  and  Edward  Ev- 
erett, urging  that,  according  to  the  original  constitution 
and  design  of  the  charter,  the  Board  of  Fellows  should 
consist  of  resident  instructors,  and  giving  many  reasons 
why  such  an  arrangement  would  be  most  advantageous 
to  the  university.  It  failed  after  having  given  birth  to 
a  half  score  of  able  and  spirited  pamphlets.  We  call 
attention  to  these  incidents  on  account  of  their  relation 
to  the  most  important  of  all  the  conditions  of  the  pros- 
perity of  any  college.  This  condition  is  the  mainte- 
nance of  a  full  understanding  and  complete  harmony  be- 
tween the  boards  of  trust  and  the  faculty  or  faculties  of 
instruction.  It  is  of  little  consequence  what  may  be 
the  legal  privileges  and  powers  of  the  three  great  ele- 
ments of  college  administration  and  legislation,  provi- 
ded they  conspire  together  for  its  support.  A  college 
in  which  the  trustees,  the  graduates,  and  the  faculty 
are  of  one  mind,  and  work  in  harmony  and  mutual  con- 
fidence, cannot  but  prosper,  providing  there  is  any  occa- 
sion for  its  existing  at  all. 


250  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


XIII. 

THE  RELATION  OF  COLLEGES  TO  ONE  ANOTHER, 

We  are  brought  insensibly  by  the  progress  of  our 
discussion  to  this  somewhat  delicate  topic.  The  col- 
leges are  not  in  a  proper  sense,  rivals  or  competitors 
for  the  public  patronage  or  favor.  They  exist  for  the 
public  benefit,  which  they  aim  to  promote  by  the 
disciplining  and  elevating  influences  of  that  culture, 
which  is  commonly  recognized  as  Christian  civilization. 
They  adopt  substantially  the  same  principles  of  educa- 
tion and  they  apply  them  by  similar  methods.  They 
ought  not  to  be  estranged  from  one  another  through 
petty  jealousies,  or  superciliously  to  ignore  each  oth- 
er's existence  or  influence.  Those  which  are  older 
and  better  endowed  ought  not  to  assume  such  airs  of 
superiority,  as  are  least  of  all  appropriate  in  the  common- 
wealth of  letters ;  those  which  are  younger  and  more 
scantily  furnished  ought  not  to  be  envious  or  jealous  of 
their  neighbors  who  are  more  favored  by  the  acquisi- 
tions of  wealth  and  experience  and  the  strong  associa- 
tions of  young  and  old.  Neither  the  religious  prefer- 
i  ences  nor  the  attractions  of  favorite  teachers  should  be 
allowed  to  breed  a  narrowness  which  ill  befits  the  gen- 
erous pursuits  of  learning  and  culture.  Least  of  all 
should  a  college  or  any   school  of  learning,  play  the 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  25 1 

demagogue,  by  adjusting  its  principles  of  education  or 
its  methods  of  teaching  to  any  real  err  supposed  fluctu- 
ation of  the  public  taste  which  it  knows  to  be  capri- 
cious, and  presumes  may  be  temporary.  If  its  faith  in 
its  reforms  is  sincere  and  honest  it  should  "  know  no  arts 
but  manly  arts"  in  urging  and  defending  them.  If  the 
colleges  and  universities  of  the  country  in  any  way 
seem  to  countenance  the  methods  of  political  managers 
by  suppressing  the  truth,  or  throwing  tubs  to  the 
whale,  or  manipulating  the  press,  or  holding  out  repre- 
sentations of  the  truth  of  w^hich  they  are  not  well- 
assured  ;  if  they  countenance  a  vicious  rhetoric,  or  ap- 
peal to  political  rancor,  to  sectarian  prejudices,  or  to 
irreligious  and  atheistic  superciliousness,  they  not  only 
give  just  cause  of  offence  to  associate  institutions  but 
contribute  just  so  far  to  the  demoralization  of  the  com- 
munity. The  community  have  a  right  not  only  to  ex- 
pect but  to  demand  that  those  who  occupy  these  high 
places  of  trust  shall  have  a  sensitive  regard  to  their 
own  intellectual  integrity  and  maintain  an  incorruptible 
faith  in  "the  majesty  of  honest  dealing."  We  are  not 
averse  to  adventurous  enterprise  on  the  part  of  our 
higher  schools  of  learning.  We  concede  that  there 
can  be  no  efficient  progress  without  enterprising  activity 
and  bold  experiments,  but  we  are  averse  to  the  confident 
proclamation  by  any  school  of  knowledge,  that  the  royal 
road  to  an  education  that  is  adapted  to  modern  ideas 
and  to  modern  life,  can  only  be  traversed  by  entering 
its  portals. 

The  relations  of  comity  to  one  another  in  matters  of 
discipline  have  usually  been  punctiliously  obser^^ed. 
Most  of  the  colleges  have  considered  it  for  their  inter- 


252  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

est  as  well  as  for  their  honor  to  sustain  the  commoc 
discipline  by  refusing  admission  to  any  student  from 
another  college  who  does  not  bring  what  is  equivalent 
to  an  honorable  dismission.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the 
same  comity  will  still  prevail,  and  that  those  institutions 
which  profess  to  enforce  the  spirit  of  a  more  efficient 
discipline  while  they  relax  many  of  the  customary 
forms,  will  not  consider  it  compatible  with  their  new 
ideas  to  open  a  door  of  welcome  to  all  those  who 
think  themselves  aggrieved  by  unjust  sentences  under 
the  ancient  system.  If  they  initiate  such  an  enter- 
prise, they  will  most  certainly  be  overwhelmed  by  a 
"  colluvies  gentium"  of  which  the  number  will  be  more 
than  compensated  for  by  the  infection  which  they  will 
introduce.  It  may  sometimes  happen  that  a  college 
deals  harshly  and  even  unjustly  toward  an  offending  stu- 
dent. But  such  injustice  is  not  often  carried  to  the  ex- 
treme of  refusing  permission  to  another  college  to  make 
any  experiment  of  reform'  at  its  own  risk.  We  hope 
that  the  proposed  University  freedom  will  not  involve 
a  deviation  from  the  wholesome  traditions  which  have 
been  observed  between  the  colleges. 

Similar  rules  of  comity  have  been  tacitly  observed 
by  most  of  the  colleges  towards  the  more  thoroughly 
organized  public  schools.  These  schools  are  often 
more  difficult  to  manage  than  the  colleges.  Their  in- 
mates are  younger,  some  of  them  are  more  rude  and 
untamed,  not  unfrequently  more  grossly  sensual  and  de- 
based than  the  worst  members  of  a  college  ;  chiefly  be- 
cause the  power  of  public  sentiment  is  not  fixed  as  in 
the  college  by  the  traditions  of  the  place  and  the  more 
manly  and  matured  character  of  the  members  of  the 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  253 

older  classes.  Moreover,  not  a  few  young  men  make 
the  experiment  of  study  and  good  behavior  in  the  pre- 
paratory school  and  utterly  fail.  For  these  reasons 
they  must  be  governed  by  a  strong  hand  and  sometimes 
with  little  regard  to  form.  These  institutions  have  of 
late  been  quite  as  frequently  the  scenes  of  organized  re- 
bellion as  the  college,  and  as  they  become  larger,  more 
numerous,  and  more  systematically  organized,  it  is  not 
unlikely,  will  need  a  more  uniform  and  stronger  gov- 
ernment. Tliis  government  should  be  respected  by  the 
colleges  as  rigidly  as  that  of  sister  institutions.  In 
some  respects  it  is  more  important  for  both  schools  and 
colleges  that  it  should  be  supported  than  that  of  the 
colleges  tliemselves.  Nothing  could  be  more  disas- 
trous to  these  schools  than  the  impression  that  a  senior 
class  at  the  moment  of  leaving  their  enclosures,  may  of- 
fend against  good  manners,  good  morals,  or  wholesome 
discipline  and  find  such  offences  to  be  no  insurmounta- 
ble barrier  to  admission  to  the  college.  It  is  doubtless 
true  that  a  school-boy  or  a  class  of  school-boys,  ought 
not  to  be  perpetually  excluded  from  college  for  any  or- 
dinary offences.  It  may  be  that  the  government  of  the 
preparatory  school  is  more  liable  to  caprice  and  mistake 
than  the  government  of  colleges.  It  does  not  often 
happen  that  such  a  government  is  so  inexorable  as  to 
interpose  its  veto  in  the  way  of  the  advancement  of  the 
pupil  to  the  college,  provided  he  makes  suitable  conces- 
sions and  apologies.  It  is  not  more  essential  for  the 
school  than  it  is  for  the  college  that  whatever  position 
is  taken  by  the  government  of  the  school  should  be 
sustained  by  all  the  colleges  with  ingenuous  as  well  as 
inflexible  integrity. 


254  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

Are  there  too  many  colleges  ?  There  are  not  too  many 
for  the  whole  country  with  its  constantly  widening  area 
and  its  rapidly  extending  population.  But  they  are  in- 
conveniently crowded  together  and  many  are  therefore 
practically  useless  because  they  are  unavailable  for 
those  who  need  them.  They  are  worse  than  useless,  so 
far  as  many  who  need  them  are  concerned.  They  hin- 
der rather  than  aid  one  another  by  their  jealous  rival- 
ries ;  and  their  sustentation  involves  an  inevitable  waste 
of  the  most  precious  resources  of  the  country — its  en- 
dowments consecrated  to  education  and  its  accumulated 
knowledge  and  intellectual  power.  The  most  thought- 
less if  not  criminal  stupidity  is  often  manifested  in  found- 
ing new  institutions  in  a  city  or  vicinity  that  is  already 
over  supplied.  It  is  not  difficult  to  obtain  a  large 
gift  from  some  plethoric  donor  who  is  ambitious  to  con- 
nect his  name  with  a  new  college  or  university,  or  by 
means  of  it  to  dignify  the-place  of  his  residence  or  nativ- 
ity. In  his  simplicity  he  thinks  it  as  easy  to  found  a 
university  as  it  is  to  build  a  cotton  mill,  and  he  finds 
no  difficulty  in  securing  the  cooperation  of  a  zealous 
board  of  trustees  and  the  praises  of  a  gratified  if  not  a 
grateful  public.  To  create  for  the  new  institution  a  rai- 
son  d^etre  some  special  features  are  set  forth  by  which  it 
is  to  be  distinguished.  It  promises  to  be  especially 
religious  or  especially  irreligious.  It  will  exemiDlify 
some  new  theory  or  experiment  in  education,  that  has 
long  waited  but  never  found  an  opportunity  for  being 
put  into  practice.  It  will  be  eminently  scientific  or 
specially  practical  or  more  probably  both  in  one.  It 
will  task  the  energies  by  severe  discipline  and  high  schol- 
arship or  provide  unusual  advantages  for  manual  labor 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  2^5 

and  varied  recreation.  There  is  no  end  to  the  "  distifi- 
guishi7ig  features^^  of  many  new  institutions  that,  in  the 
judgment  of  their  sanguine  friends^  are  certain  to  be 
speedily  distinguished.  Often  there  seem  to  be  no  Umits 
to  the  effrontery  of  agents  or  the  simpUcity  of  confiding 
patrons,  whose  money,  often  given  by  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars,  had  far  better  be  thrown  into  the  sea 
than  contributed  to  found  a  "  new  university "  which 
can  only  live  at  the  expense  of  its  neighbors.  For 
this  constantly  recurring  evil  it  is  not  easy  to  devise  a 
remedy.  Intelligent  men  should  protest  against  it  as 
an  evil  and  call  the  attention  of  persons  of  influ- 
ence to  its  very  serious  character.  It  is  not  in  vain  to 
hope  that  the  American  public  may  be  educated  to 
greater  wisdom  by  the  lessons  that  are  taught  by  so 
many  instances  of  disappointed  expectations.  Perhaps 
it  is  too  much  to  expect  that  any  institution  which  bears 
the  ambitious  title  of  college  or  university  should  be 
content  to  fill  an  humbler  but  much  more  useful 
sphere.  The  need  is  pressing  however  of  superior 
secondar}?-  schools  devoted  to  classical  and  higher  edu- 
cation. Some  of  these  colleges  which  are  now  worse 
than  useless  might  become  eminently  serviceable  to  the 
common  welfare  as  scientific  and  technological  insti- 
tutes. Their  buildings,  endowments  and  names — what- 
ever these  last  might  be  worth — would  in  many  cases  be 
far  more  worthily  employed  by  being  used  in  the  service 
of  a  superior  classical  or  scientific  school  than  by  being 
wasted  on  an  inferior  or  contemptible  college.  Every 
purpose  which  they  subserve  of  honor  to  their  founders 
or  the  community  in  which  they  exist,  would  be  far  more 
effectually  promoted  by  such  a  disposition  of  their  en- 


256  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

dowments.  We  do  not  intend  by  these  remarks  to  de- 
preciate the  present  or  the  prospective  value  of  many 
of  the  smaller  colleges  or  of  the  education  which  they 
give.  A  small  college  well-manned  and  thoroughly  ad- 
ministered has  many  advantages  over  one  that  is  larger, 
in  respect  of  the  intimacy  of  acquaintance  and  inter- 
course between  the  officers  and  pupils,  and  also  in 
respect  of  the  rigor  with  which  a  few  studies,  wisely 
selected,  can  be  thoroughly  enforced.  The  larger  col- 
leges have  much  to  fear  from  the  bulk  and  weight  of  the 
mass  of  material  thrown  upon  their  care  and  from  the 
growing  tendency  to  exalt  the  professorial  to  the  disad- 
vantage of  the  tutorial  function,  to  say  nothing  of  the 
increase  of  a  selfish  or  luxurious  consideration  of  pri- 
vate acquisition,  and  of  a  learned  reputation. 

The  fact  ought  to  be  specially  noticed  that  some  of 
the  smaller  colleges  of  the  country  have  produced  not  a 
few  of  its  most  eminent  -men — men  eminent  not  only  in 
public  and  professional  life,  but  in  science,  literature, 
and  philology.  It  is  interesting  to  observe  that  more 
than  one  institution  in  which  the  number  of  professors 
was  small  and  of  no  especial  eminence  in  their  respec- 
tive departments,  and  which  possessed  but  scanty  appli- 
ances of  books  and  apparatus,  has  sent  forth  in  a  single 
year  a  considerable  number  of  students  who  were  in- 
spired with  special  zeal  for  literature,  science,  or  philos- 
ophy, and  who  under  its  direction  and  excitements  have 
laid  the  most  solid  foundations  for  subsequent  eminence. 
Of  many,  not  to  say  of  the  most  of  the  American  col- 
leges it  might  be  said  a  generation  ago,  in  the  words  of 
an  animated  narrator  of  the  condition  of  his  own  Alma 
Mater  forty  years  before,  "  Her  wealth  consisted  not  in 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  257 

a  long  list  of  rents  and  dividends,  but  in  the  ability,  at- 
tainments, energy,  aspirations,  and  zeal  of  her  instruc- 
tors and  students ;  in  their  mutual  goodwill,  respect 
and  courtesy  ;  in  the  harmony  with  which  they  cooper- 
ated for  the  advancement  of  the  institution,  and  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  great  ends  for  which  it  had  been 
founded  ;  in  the  strong  sense  of  religious  obligation 
that  prevailed ;  and  in  the  blessing  of  God  resting 
upon  all."  It  may  seem  like  a  truism  to  assert  that 
these  are  the  most  important  species  of  wealth  to  any  col- 
lege whether  great  or  small,  and  that  without  these 
resources  no  institution  can  be  a  desirable  place  of 
study,  whatever  other  attractions  it  may  offer.  Many 
of  the  younger  and  smaller  colleges  have  no  reason 
to  be  either  ashamed  or  discouraged  by  reason  of  the 
greater  wealth  of  those  which  are  older  or  larger. 
There  is  ever}^  reason  why  the  sentiment  of  Daniel 
Webster  towards  his  own  college,  which  was  uttered  on 
a  memorable  occasion,  should  be  cherished  by  many 
graduates  of  the  minor  colleges.  "  It  is  a  small  college 
but  there  are  those  who  love  it !" 

The  suggestion  is  made  by  President  M'Cosh  after  the 
practice  ol  the  Dublin  and  London  Universities,  with 
which  he  is  familiar  :  Why  may  not  the  several  col- 
leges of  a  State  or  a  vicinage  be  connected  together  as 
subordinate  members  of  a  common  university ;  the  last 
being  a  corporation  existing  solely  for  the  appoint- 
ment of  examiners  and  the  conferring  of  degrees  ?  Each 
college  might  be  a  subordinate  to  the  university ;  even 
its  trustees  might  by  their  representatives  constitute 
its  Board  of  Managers  either  wholly  or  in  part.  Its  ex- 
aminers might  be  selected  in  rotation  from  the  colleges. 


258  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

If  need  be  the  degrees  of  the  college  and  some  of  its 
honors  might  be  conditioned  upon  a  successful  exami- 
nation by  the  university.  No  special  advantage  would 
follow  from  this  arrangement  except  the  more  perfect 
harmony  of  the  several  institutions,  their  cooperation  in 
the  elevation  of  the  standard  of  good  learning,  and  the 
stimulus  to  high  attainments  which  would  be  felt  by  the 
Students.  But  these  advantages  are  most  important. 
We  simply  present  the  proposal  as  appropriate  to  this 
part  of  our  discussion  without  enlarging  upon  it.  We 
only  add  the  remark,  that  many  considerations  of  duty 
and  interest  might  be  named  which  if  duly  regarded, 
would  bring  the  American  colleges  into  closer  and  more 
familiar  relations  with  one  another. 


AND    THE   AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  259 


XIV. 

THE  RELATION  OF  COLLEGES   TO  SCHOOLS  OF 
SCIENCE. 

These  schools  are  indebted  to  the  colleges  for  their 
existence,  and  it  would  be  unnatural  though  not  impossi- 
ble that  the  parents  should  become  jealous  of  their  off- 
spring. Those  founded  the  earliest  were  constituted 
as  special  or  professional  schools  j  the  chief  if  not  the 
sole  object  of  which,  should  be,  to  prepare  for  those 
departments  of  life  which  required  a  more  extended  and 
thorough  acquaintance  with  chemistry  and  engineering 
than  the  colleges  could  properly  impart  or  provide  for. 
In  respect  to  the  requisites  for  admission,  they  were 
placed  upon  the  same  footing  with  the  other  professional 
schools.  While  a  course  of  collegiate  study  was  regarded 
as  a  very  advantageous  preparation  for  admission,  this 
was  insisted  on  no  more  stringently  than  it  had  been  for 
the  schools  of  law  and  medicine.  Moreover  special  en- 
couragement was  given  to  those  whose  previous  educa- 
tion had  been  very  limited,  to  enter  upon  such  a  brief 
course  of  chemistry  as  might  qualify  for  some  skill  in 
agriculture  or  the  arts,  or  such  a  course  in  engineer- 
ing and  even  in  land  surveying  as  would  prepare  for 
speedy  service  in  the  field.  Mining  was  very  soon  re- 
cognized as  one  of  the  leading  practical  interests  for 
which  these  schools  should  give  a  special  education. 


26o  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

Inasmuch  as  a  knowledge  of  the  French  and  German 
language  is  almost  essential  for  the  successful  prosecu- 
tion of  such  professional  studies,  provision  was  made 
for  instruction  in  these  languages  for  those  who  might 
choose  to  avail  themselves  of  it.  Other  branches  of 
study,  all  looking  to  some  practical  application,  were 
added  as  these  schools  increased  in  the  number  of  stu- 
dents and  in  other  resources.  The  question  then  arose 
whether  distinct  courses  of  study  should  not  be  pre- 
scribed, and  definite  periods  for  their  prosecution  should 
not  be  assigned.  When  this  step  had  been  taken  to- 
wards organization,  another  question  arose  :  Whether 
in  order  to  prevent  this  education  from  becoming  too 
one-sided  and  illiberal,  it  was  not  wise  and  necessary  to 
make  distinct  provision  for  instruction  in  English  litera- 
ture and  history,  and  in  the  moral  and  political  sci- 
ences. Such  provision  M'as  made,  in  one  of  these 
schools  at  least,  tiH  its  curriculum  became  "  well 
rounded "  into  something  like  organic  completeness. 
The  thought  had  all  the  while  been  entertained  that 
such  an  education  was  better  adapted  to  a  certain  class 
of  young  men  the  texture  and  habits  of  whose  minds  and 
the  limitations  of  whose  time  seemed  to  preclude  them 
from  the  longer  and  the  more  valuable  courses  of  the  col- 
lege and  the  professional  school.  In  response  to  this  call 
and  under  the  impulses  which  we  have  described,  new 
schools  were  founded  and  old  schools  were  shaped  with 
the  distinct  object  of  furnishing  an  education  in  which 
the  English  and  modern  languages  should  take  the 
place  of  the  classics,  and  the  physical  sciences  should 
be  the  objects  of  special  and  thorough  research,  while 
a  somewhat  more  practical  direction  should  be  given  to 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  26 1 

the  Studies  than  is  contemplated  in  the  classical  college. 
In  this  way  "  the  New  Education,"  as  it  has  been  called, 
came  into  being  in  a  natural  way,  the  demand  stimulat- 
ing the  supply  and  the  supply  shaping  itself  according 
to  the  demand.  It  is  administered  after  somewhat  dif- 
ferent methods  in  different  institutions,  e.  g.,  by  the  elec- 
tive system  of  Harvard  University,  the  Scientific  School 
at  Yale,  the  Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology,  and 
the  mixed  systems  of  Union  College,  Cornell  and  Mich- 
igan Universities. 

The  Sheffield  Scientific  School  contemplates  a  defi- 
nite and  orderly  scientific  and  literary  training,  for  the 
first  year  in  common  studies,  and  for  two  years  follow- 
ing in  special  departments  of  study  and  research.  Its 
friends  claim  that  in  connection  with  the  classical  de- 
partment it  enables  Yale  College  successfully  to  accom- 
plish the  ends  proposed  by  the  elective  system  without 
its  disadvantages.  It  has  done  not  a  little  for  higher  ed- 
ucation. It  has  attracted  a  large  number  of  the  gradu- 
ates of  the  college  and  put  them  upon  a  post-graduate 
course,  giving  them  the  advantages  of  both  the  classi- 
cal and  scientific  courses  and  making  a  reality  of  thor- 
ough university  studies.  It  has  certainly  done  its 
share,  as  a  constituent  of  the  so-called  department  of 
philosophy  and  the  arts  to  awaken  an  interest  in  and 
to  provide  instruction  for  an  efficient  post-graduate  de- 
partment, or  a  University  proper  in  connection  with  Yale 
College. 

A  very  large  number  of  independent  schools  have 
been  organized  under  the  special  act  of  Congress,  and 
constitute  what  are  sometimes  called  the  National 
Schools  of   Science.      The  existence  and  efficient  or- 


262  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

ganization  of  most  of  these  institutions  are  however  to 
be  ascribed  to  the  example  and  shaping  spirit  of  the 
scientific  school  as  modeled  after  the  college.  Many 
of  these  schools  are  as  yet  inchoate  and  unformed  in 
respect  to  both  theory  and  administration.  Not  a  few- 
are  simply  training  schools  for  some  practical  art  or 
employment.  A  few  only  aspire  to  be  schools  of  sci- 
ence proper ;  connecting  with  the  discipline  appropri- 
ate to  such  an  object,  more  or  less  of  general  culture. 
No  two  of  them  can  be  said  to  be  alike  either  in  the 
comprehensiveness  of  their  aims  or  the  thoroughness 
of  the  culture  which  they  impart.  It  is  only  the  best 
of  them  that  can  come  into  special  relations  with  the 
colleges. 

The  differences  between  schools  of  this  kind  and  the 
colleges  have  been  ably  indicated  by  the  author  of  the 
two  papers  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly  which  have  been  al- 
ready referred  to.  "The  fact  is,  that  the  whole  tone 
and  spirit  of  a  good  college  ought  to  be  different  in 
kind  from  that  of  a  good  polytechnic  or  scientific 
school.  ^  In  the  college,  the  desire  for  the  broadest  cul- 
ture, for  the  best  formation  and  information  of  the  mind, 
the  enthusiastic  study  of  subjects  for  the  love  of  them 
without  any  ulterior  objects,  the  love  of  learning  and 
research  for  their  own  sake,  should  be  the  dominant 
ideas.  In  the  polytechnic  school  should  be  found  a  men- 
tal training  inferior  to  none  in  breadth  and  vigor,  a  thirst 
for  knowledge,  a  genuine  enthusiasm  in  scientific  re- 
search, and  a  true  love  of  nature ;  but  underneath  all 
these  things  is  a  temper  or  leading  motive  unlike  that 
of  a  college.  The  student  in  a  polytechnic  school  has  a 
practical  end  constantly  in  view  ;  he  is  training  his  fac- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  263 

ulties  with  the  express  object  of  making  himself  a  better 
manufacturer,  engineer,  or  teacher  ;  he  is  studying  the 
processes  of  nature,  in  order  afterwards  to  turn  them  to 
human  uses  and  his  own  profit ;  if  he  is  eager  to  pene- 
trate the  mysteries  of  electricity,  it  is  largely  because 
he  wants  to  understand  telegraphs  ;  if  he  learns  French 
and  German,  it  is  chiefly  because  he  would  not  have  the 
best  technical  literature  of  his  generation  sealed  for  him  ; 
if  he  imbues  his  mind  with  the  profound  and  exquisite 
conceptions  of  the  calculus,  it  is  in  order  the  better  to 
comprehend  mechanics.  This  practical  end  should 
never  be  lost  sight  of  by  student  or  teacher  in  a  poly- 
technic school,  and  it  should  ver^^  seldom  be  thought  of 
or  alluded  to  in  a  college.  Just  as  far  as  the  spirit 
proper  to  a  polytechnic  school  pervades  a  college,  just 
so  far  that  college  falls  below  its  true  idea.  The  prac- 
tical spirit  and  the  literary  or  scholastic  spirit  are  both 
good,  but  they  are  incompatible.  If  commingled,  they 
are  both  spoiled,"  (pp.  214,  5). 

These  views  we  think  to  be  correct,  and  they  indicate 
the  relations  which  should  be  maintained  towards  one 
another  by  the  colleges  and  the  schools  of  science  and 
technology.  These  institutions  cannot  with  any  pro- 
priety be  jealous  of  one  another,  for  they  propose  to 
accomplish  different  results  and  for  two  classes  of  stu- 
dents. The  colleges  propose  to  attain  discipline  and 
culture  directly,  and  practical  results  remotely,  though 
not  the  less  efficiently  and  certainly  when  such  results 
are  estimated  by  a  proper  standard  of  utilit}^  The 
schools  of  science  propose  to  occupy  the  student  with 
the  study  of  mathematics  and  the  sciences  of  nature, 
with   more    or  less  attention  to  immediate   and  direct 


264  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

practical  applications  ;  intellectual  discipline  being  se- 
cured incidentally  so  far  as  all  earnest  and  diligent 
study  must  involve  intellectual  labor  and  activity. 
They  proppse  also  a  thorough  study  of  the  modern 
languages  and  philology,  including  the  English,  for 
the  reason  that  these  languages  are  more  nearly  re- 
lated to  the  uses  and  needs  of  pratical  life.  Hav- 
ing different  spheres,  that  are  distinctly  defined,  they 
need  not  and  they  ought  not  to  be  antagonistic  in 
their  feelings  or  their  activities.  This  being  so,  the 
question  would  naturally  suggest  itself :  Why  not  com- 
bine the  two  in  one  ?  Why  not  unite  the  college  and 
the  school  of  science .?  To  these  questions  the  author 
already  cited,  replies  with  equal  point  and  truthfulness. 

"  But  the  two  kinds  of  education  cannot  be  carried  on 
together,  in  the  same  schedules,  by  the  same  teachers. 
The  classical  course  will  hurt  the  scientific,  and  the  sci- 
entific the  classical.  Neither  will  be  at  its  best.  The 
experience  of  the  world  and  common  sense  are  against 
such  experiments  as  those  of  Brown,  Union,  and  Mich- 
igan. Nevertheless,  they  may  be  good  temporary  expe- 
dients during  a  transition  period,  or  in  crude  communi- 
ties where  hasty  culture  is  as  natural  as  fast  eating. 
They  do  good  service  in  lack  of  better  things,"  (p.  215). 

These  reasons  seem  to  us  satisfactory.  The  institu- 
tions are  so  diverse  that  they  will  act  with  greater  effi- 
ciency if  they  are  independent  of  one  another  in  respect 
to  government  and  instruction.  The  officers  will  feel 
greater  freedom  and  greater  responsibility  if  they  are 
chiefly  concerned  with  one  set  of  students.  Their 
classes  will  be  far  more  laborious  and  enthusiastic  if 
they  are   made  up  of  pupils  who  study  in  a  common 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  265 

Spirit  and  with  similar  aims.  The  genius  of  each  insti- 
tution will  be  far  more  free  to  form  and  develope  itself 
if  the  institution  is  shut  up  to  its  own  activities  and  fre- 
quented by  men  of  common  aims.  The  inspiring  and 
regulating  influences  of  the  common  life  of  each  will  be 
far  more  efficient  if  their  sway  is  undisputed.  We  con- 
tend that  it  is  not  wise  to  combine  the  two,  as  is  done  in 
effect  by  the  elective  system  adopted  in  Harvard  Uni- 
versity. We  are  aware  that  President  Eliot  would  ex- 
plain his  apparent  deviation  from  the  views  of  Profes- 
sor Eliot  as  quoted  above,  by  insisting  that  the  scien- 
tific studies  to  be  elected  are  pursued  as  sciences  and 
not  in  the  practical  spirit  of  "  the  new  education,"  but 
this  distinction  is  somewhat  too  subtle  and  refined  to 
satisfy  ordinary  minds.  Were  it  admitted,  it  would  limit 
the  attractions  of  the  elective  system,  and  weaken  many 
of  the  arguments  in  its  favor  more  than  would  please  the 
President  himself 

These  institutions  may  be  separate  schools  under  the 
same  board  of  trustees  and  thus  exist  as  members  of 
one  university.  In  such  a  case  they  may  preserve  all  the 
independence  which  is  essential  to  the  vigorous  and  sep- 
arate life  of  each  and  yet  may  avail  themselves  of  the  as- 
sistence  and  sympathy  of  one  another  as  w^ell  as  of  the 
same  libraries,  museums,  and  other  appliances.  Their 
existence  in  the  same  community  brings  together  a 
larger  number  of  the  devotees  of  science  and  literature 
and  unites  them  under  the  generous  relations  which  are 
appropriate  to  their  common  aims.  The  diversity  of 
their  activities  and  the  distinctive  character  of  the 
schools  with  which  they  are  connected  may  serve  at 
times    to   correct    the    one-sidedness    and    pedantry   to 

12 


266  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

which  humanists  and  scientists,  theologians  and  physiol- 
ogists are  alike  exposed.  An  able  expert  or  proficient  in 
any  department  of  knowledge  is  often  more  valuable 
and  convenient  to  his  neighbor  in  a  different  line  of 
study,  than  a  whole  library  of  books  or  a  series  of  elab- 
orate experiments  can  be.  Each  of  these  institutions 
may  also  avail  themselves  of  the  instructions  of  the 
neighboring  school.  Though  it  is  desirable  that  each 
should  be  furnished  with  a  separate  staff  of  teachers, 
who  should  be  responsible  for  the  most  of  its  instruction 
and  for  all  its  government,  there  is  no  reason  why  the 
instructors  of  each  should  not  teach  the  pupils  of  the 
other,  in  their  own  or  in  separate  class-rooms  according 
as  the  number  of  students  and  the  nature  of  the  instruc- 
tion may  decide. 

Each  of  these  institutions  has  advantages  which  it 
cannot  share  with  the  others.  The  student  of  the 
school  of  science  studjes  with  the  tests  of  truth  immedi- 
ately within  his  reach  or  the  end  and  application  of  his 
labors  more  directly  in  his  view.  For  either  or  both 
these  reasons,  other  things  being  equal,  he  will  study 
with  greater  enthusiasm,  more  patience,  and  sometimes 
with  a  keener  intelligence.  Its  instructors  will  have  less 
occasion  to  arouse  those  pupils,  to  whose  studies  Nature 
is  constantly  presenting  herself  with  her  fresh  and  posi- 
tive aspects  to  excite  to  new  zeal  or  to  reprove  vague 
surmising,  or  immediately  behind  whose  examinations  or 
analyses,  there  lie  some  of  the  tempting  prizes  of  active 
or  professional  life.  He  will  often  be  able  to  make  that 
clear  which  would  be  otherwise  obscure,  by  illustrating 
its  working  in  some  actual  application,  or  by  explaining 
its  relations  to  some  practical  art.     Whether  the  students 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  267 

of  the  school  c^  science  are  fresh  from  the  high  school, 
or  just  graduated  from  the  college,  they  will  be  more 
likely  to  be  earnest,  business-like  and  enthusiastic,  than 
the  students  of  the  college.  While  much  of  the  teach- 
ing must  be  elementary  and  toilsome  by  reason  of  the 
slow  and  inflexible  minds  of  those  students  who  are 
imperfectly  disciplined,  not  a  little  will  be  advanced  be- 
yond that  which  is  given  in  the  college.  If  the  school 
of  science  in  some  things  has  the  disadvantage  of  the 
high  school  as  compared  with  the  college,  in  other 
respects  it  has  the  advantages  of  the  university  over 
the  college,  in  respect  to  the  character  of  the  instruction 
and  the  interest  of  the  pupils.  In  point  of  fact,  some 
of  the  instruction  given  in  these  schools  has  been  of 
the  very  highest  order  which  the  country  can  show. 
The  absolute  necessity  of  a  greater  division  of  labor, 
tends  to  secure  to  the  scientific  school  an  important  ad- 
vantage. 

On  the  other  hand  many  of  its  studies  are  not  and 
cannot  be  liberal,  in  the  special  sense  of  those  of  the 
college,  even  if  it  be  conceded  that  they  are  proper- 
ly disciplinary.  They  are  connected  by  fewer  relations 
with  the  history  of  the  past,  and  the  ever  varying 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  man.  They  do  not  cultivate 
the  man  so  broadly  nor  for  pursuits  that  appeal  so  pro- 
foundly to  the  higher  manifestations  and  achievements 
of  life  and  character.  At  the  same  time,  it  must  be 
conceded  that  these  more  elevated  aspects  of  the  training 
and  studies  of  the  college,  are  not  within  the  eye  of  the 
pupil.  He  does  not  comprehend  and  often  he  will  not 
believe  in  their  importance.  The  college  instructor 
must  often  labor  with  pupils  who  do  not  always  appre- 


268  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

ciate  the  value  of  the  studies  which  are  imposed.  He 
labors  however  with  the  assured  confidence  that  the  re- 
sults will  by  and  by  appear,  and  that  if  his  pupils  do  not 
at  present  appreciate  what  he  is  doing  for  them,  they 
will  do  so  hereafter.  While  he  contends  with  special 
discouragements  and  disabilities,  he  has  the  assurance 
that  the  system  which  he  applies  has  the  approval  of 
the  wisest  men  of  the  past  and  has  stood  the  test  of  time. 
He  learns  from  not  a  few  of  his  pupils,  who  have  had 
occasion  to  prove  the  value  of  the  classical  discipline, 
that  these  enforced  studies  have  been  of  inestimable 
value,  in  the  subsequent  activities  of  professional,  pub- 
lic and  business  life — that  the  worst  calamity  which 
could  have  happened  to  them,  would  have  been  a  com- 
pliance with  their  impatient  youthful  desires  to  be  re- 
leased from  these  apparently  useless  studies.  He  stands 
fast  in  the  truth  expressed  in  the  words  of  Prof.  Gold- 
win  Smith :  "  Liberal  education  need  not  be  ascetic  or 
regardless  of  the  usefulness  or  the  interest  of  the  things 
taught,  as  it  has  hitherto  been  ;  but  it  must  be  liberal 
not  professional ;  its  function  is  to  cultivate  the  mind, 
and  to  store  it  with  the  knowledge  which  a  youth  of  a 
certain  class  requires  as  a  formal  preparation  for  life. 
Mental  power  and  general  information  are  its  objects 
and  tests,  not  utility."  "  Subjects  attaining  admittance 
into  the  liberal  course,  must  prove  not  only  their  utility, 
but  their  fitness  for  the  purpose  of  education ;  and 
though  the  ear  of  the  educator  ought  to  be  open  to 
each  member  of  the  group  of  Natural  Sciences  where 
it  tenders  proof  of  this,  the  proof  ought  to  be  required." 
He  may  believe  that  the  study  of  Nature  is  as  essential  to 
a  truly  liberal  culture  as  the  study  of  literature  and  his- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  269 

tory  and  yet  hold  intelligently  and  firmly  that  the  study 
of  language  and  of  the  classical  languages  is  indispen- 
sable to  furnish  the  highest  and  best  preparation  for 
the  most  successful  and  liberal  study  of  Nature  herself 
— that  if  a  man  is  to  be  a  philosopher  he  must  in  his 
childhood  combine  the  study  of  Natural  History  with 
the  subtle  and  rigid  analyses  of  classic  study.  But 
while  the  advocate  for  the  classical  course  contends  for 
its  essential  and  permanent  superiorit}^  as  a  means  of 
a  truly  liberal  culture,  he  rejoices,  if  his  own  culture  is 
itself  liberal,  in  the  development  and  prosperity  of  the 
school  of  science.  The  most  zealous  advocate  of  »the 
college  system  as  best  adapted  to  the  highest  education 
of  the  community,  is  usually  the  warmest  friend  of 
those  schools  in  which  the  magnificent  sciences  of  Na- 
ture are  pursued  with  that  zeal,  concentration,  and  pa- 
tience, which  these  sciences  must  always  exact  from  their 
successful  devotees.  That  man  cannot  be  a  truly  liberal 
scholar  or  thinker  who  does  not  rejoice  in  the  splendid 
achievements  of  modern  science  and  in  the  enthusiasm 
with  which  its  students  devote  themselves  to  its  service. 
He  cannot  be  awake  to  the  necessities  of  the  times,  and 
the  true  enlightenment  of  the  largest  number,  whose 
zeal  for  the  Old  education,  disqualifies  him  for  intelli- 
gent and  cordial  sympathy  with  the  New. 


270  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 


XV. 

EDUCATIONAL  PROGRESS  AND  REFORM. 

The  charge  has  not  unfrequently  been  urged  against 
the  American  colleges,  by  some  portions  of  the  Ameri- 
can public,  that  they  are  bound  so  rigidly  by  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  past,  as  to  be  incapable  of  those  improve- 
ments which  are  required  by  the  changing  phases  of 
the  present  generation.  No  charge  is  more  untrue  or 
unfounded.  The  older  of  these  colleges  were  not  in 
the  beginning  servilely  copied  from  the  colleges  of  the 
old  world,  though  founded  at  a  time  and  by  men  who  rev- 
erenced the  traditions  of  the  venerable  schools  in  which 
they  themselves  had  been  trained.  In  their  original  con- 
stitution they  were  adapted  to  the  condition  and  wants 
of  the  communities  for  which  they  were  provided,  and 
in  their  growth  and  development  they  have  undergone 
successive  transformations,  according  to  the  shaping 
spirit  of  successive  generations.  We  have  not  designed 
to  protest  against  reforms  in  the  college  system  or  in 
its  administration.  We  are  quite  willing  to  admit  that 
some  are  imperatively  required.  We  are  not  displeased 
that  questions  concerning  them  should  be  freely  dis- 
cussed by  any  class  of  thinkers  or  writers  or  before 
any  tribunal.  We  insist  only  that  the  tribunal  should 
be  competent  to  judge  of  the  questions,  and  that  the 
parties  who  discuss  these  subjects  should  have  clear  and 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  27 1 

just  conceptions  of  the  ends  of  higher  education,  and 
some  experience  concerning  the  means  by  which  these 
ends  can  be  most  successfully  attained.  The  recent 
agitation  of  these  questions  which  has  occasioned  this 
series  of  papers,  will,  we  are  confident,  result  only  in 
advantage  to  the  higher  education  of  the  country,  by 
calling  attention  to  those  reforms  which  the  colleges  re- 
quire, and  by  vindicating  their  essential  features  from 
the  objections  of  shallow  and  ill-informed  critics. 

We  are  in  no  sense  averse  to  the  development  of  the 
college  into  a  university.  We  believe  this  to  be  desira- 
ble and  possible,  with  enterprise,  patience,  money,  and 
time.  But  we  are  opposed  to  the  employment  of  uni- 
versity instruction,  and  of  university  freedom  and  irre- 
sponsibility, for  classes  which  require  the  discipline  of 
the  college.  To  introduce  the  option  of  the  university, 
or  the  lectures  of  the  university,  to  pupils  who  are 
grounded  in  nothing  but  in  a  conceit  of  their  adequacy 
to  grapple  with  any  subject,  and  who  are  impelled  by 
aspirations  to  arrive  speedily  at  the  goal  without  travel- 
ing over  the  intervening  space,  tends  only  to  destroy 
the  college  by  substituting  the  show  of  a  university,  and 
to  sink  the  so-called  university  into  a  special  school  of 
technology.  Were  it  not  advocated  in  England  by  men 
who  represent  both  the  aristocracy  of  birth  and  of  cul- 
ture, we  should  pronounce  it  to  be  an  American  expe- 
dient, to  dignify  superficial  and  limited  attainments  by 
high  sounding  names,  and  to  substitute  an  apparently 
short  cut  over  bushes  and  briars  for  a  path  that  has 
been  often  tried  and  found  to  be  the  shortest  practicable. 
We  are  not  opposed  to  trying  every  method  and  study 
by  the  criterion  of  usefulness,  but  we  would  always  in- 


272  THE   AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

terpose  the  question,  useful  for  whatl  We  believe  that 
those  studies  and  that  discipline  which  are  the  most 
useful  to  train  to  manly  thinking,  to  nice  discrimination, 
and  simple  diction ;  as  well  as  to  noble  purposes,  and 
an  enlarged  acquaintance  with  man  and  his  history,  are 
the  most  useful  studies  in  fact :  while  the  criterion  of 
direct  service  for  the  exercise  of  one's  immediate  trade, 
calling,  or  profession,  is  sophistical  and  misleading. 
We  do  not  reject  the  mathematics  from  the  course, 
though  their  direct  utility  in  the  vulgar  sense  seems  to 
be  more  questionable  than  that  of  any  other  class  of 
studies.  At  the  same  time,  we  question  whether,  in  a 
general  course,  they  should  be  pursued  beyond  the  limit 
at  which  their  best  disciplinary  effect  seems  frequently 
to  be  exhausted,  and  their  special  refinements  and  intri- 
cacies serve  to  confuse  rather  than  to  sharpen  the  wits, 
and  to  burden  rather  than  to  excite  the  powers.  We 
would  retain  the  study  of  the  classics,  for  the  reasons 
which  we  have  given  at  kngth,  but  we  would,  if  possi- 
ble, make  the  study  serviceable  to  the  cultivation  of  the 
taste  for  literature  as  well  as  to  intellectual  discipline. 
The  design  of  this  study  in  college  should  be,  not  to 
train  for  the  tastes  and  discriminations  of  grammarians 
and  philologists,  but  for  the  mastery  of  the  ancient  lan- 
guages for  pleasurable  and  easy  reading.  We  would 
resist  to  the  last  any  concession  which  would  tend  to 
dim.inish  the  time  or  lower  the  estimate  which  has 
been  conceded  to  classical  study.  At  the  same  time 
we  would  freely  adopt  any  method  of  studying  or  teach- 
ing the  classics  which  promises  to  make  them  more  in- 
teresting and  more  valuable  as  literature.  We  hold  the 
opinion  very  earnestly  that  upon  the  retention  and  sue- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  273 

cessful  regulation  of  classical  study  more  than  upon 
any  single  feature  of  the  college  economy  hangs  the 
question  for  this  country  whether  we  shall  continue  as 
a  people  to  respect  and  honor  what  is  noble  in  the  past 
or  shall  give  ourselves  up  to  the  unsteady  and  often 
mistaken  guidance  of  the  unreflecting  and  uninstructed 
present ;  whether,  in  short,  our  public  opinion  and  our 
press  as  well  as  our  politics  shall  be  controlled  by  sci- 
olists and  demagogues,  or  by  scholars  and  statesmen. 
The  sciences  of  nature  have  already  received  liberal 
attention  in  the  colleges.  The  claim  that  they  can  take 
the  place  of  the  humanistic  studies  as  a  means  of  disci- 
pline, or  that  they  can  even  be  thoroughly  taught  and 
mastered  except  in  special  classes  or  in  special  schools, 
must,  we  think,  be  abandoned. 

The  claim  that  the  Scientific  School  proposes  a  better 
education  for  most  men  or  even  a  more  desirable  or 
useful  education  for  any  man  than  the  colleges,  would 
seem  to  be  premature  to  one  who  reflects  how  very 
short  has  been  the  experience  of  the  oldest  of  these 
schools  and  how  very  discordant  with  one  another  are 
the  theory  and  practice  of  those  schools  which  have  been 
organized  the  longest.  The  New  Education,  if  it  had 
been  in  operation  long  enough  for  its  advocates  to  define 
or  describe  what  it  is,  has  not  yet  been  proved  by  its 
fruits,  and  it  would  be  the  height  of  presumption  and 
folly  to  pronounce  it  so  far  a  success  as  to  justify  the 
abandonment  of  the  old  system  which  has  at  least  a  defi- 
nite character  and  has  produced  some  good  results. 
Perhaps  unsuspected  defects  may  appear  in  the  theory 
and  administration  of  the  new.  The  remark  of  Gold- 
win  Smith   is    worth    considering:    "The    results   of  a 


2  74  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

training  exclusively  literary  have  long  been  manifest  ] 
the  results  of  a  training  exclusively  scientific  are  begin- 
ning to  appear."  If  we  substitute  "prominently"  for 
"  exclusively,"  the  observation  has  no  little  meaning  and 
force.  There  are  those  who  would  decide  the  question 
by  contrasting  the  old  education  as  "  the  study  of  words," 
with  the  new  as  "  the  study  of  things."  Those  who  use 
such  expedients  usually  betray  an  equal  ignorance  of 
the  nature  and  the  influences  of  the  study  of  both  words 
and  things.  Their  position  is  in  principle  similar  to  that 
of  Rousseau,  who  would  send  man  back  to  the  bar- 
barous condition  in  order  to  restore  him  to  the  sim- 
plicity of  nature.  The  study  of  things  must  lead  to  the 
science  of  things,  and  the  science  of  things  must  ex- 
press the  thoughts  of  man  about  things,  and  the  expres- 
sion of  the  thoughts  of  man  about  things  must  be  made 
in  words.  The  soul  of  man  in  the  creed  of  some  peo- 
ple is  a  thing  as  really  as  his  liver  or  his  brain — the 
thoughts  and  feelings  of  the  soul  are  as  really  phenom- 
ena as  are  electricity,  or  protoplasm,  or  cell  growths. 
Government,  literature,  languages,  religion,  philosophy, 
and  induction  itself  are  as  really  products  of  nature 
and  things  as  cell-growths  and  chemical  combinations. 
No  man  can  study  words  who  does  not  study  things, 
and  no  one  can  study  what  he  calls  things  without  also 
very  largely  studying  words. 

The  modern  languages  have  already  been  freely  in- 
troduced into  the  courses  of  many  colleges.  It  is 
greatly  to  be  regretted  that  the  elements  of  French  and 
German  cannot  be  required  for  admission  in  order  that 
the  college  training  might  be  more  liberal  and  aesthetic. 
For  this  and  many  other  improvements  in   the  college 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  275 

course  we  must  look  to  the  preparatory  schools.  These 
are  an  essential  element  in  the  system  of  higher  educa- 
tion of  which  the  college  forms  a  part.  Some  of  these 
schools  are  admirable,  needing  no  other  reform  ex- 
cept in  respect  to  general  culture,  as  in  Natural  Histor}^', 
in  Geography,  History,  and  the  English  language  ;  in  all 
of  which  special  knowledge  and  refinement,  as  w^ell  as 
the  facile  use  of  some  modern  language,  is  more  im- 
important  than  is  usually  believed  as  a  preparation  for 
the  highest  advantages  from  the  college  course. 

Indeed,  many  of  the  defects  charged  upon  the  colle- 
ges of  the  country,  are  fairly  chargeable  to  the  low 
standard  of  general  culture  among  the  better  classes 
among  us,  and  to  the  want  of  thoroughness  and 
breadth  in  many  of  the  secondary  schools.  We  shall 
nev^er  forget  the  remark  of  one  of  the  most  eminent 
scholars  of  Germany,  the  late  Frederick  W.  Thiersch — 
himself  a  courtier  and  a  man  of  the  world  as  w-ell  as  an 
accomplished  classicist:  "The  great  want  of  Eng- 
land and  America  is  an  organized  system  of  secon- 
dary schools.  You  cannot  have  a  successful  higher  in- 
struction, till  these  are  provided."  We  believe  it  to  be 
true,  that  if  the  tens  of  millions  of  dollars  that  have 
been  wasted,  and  worse  than  wasted,  in  founding  and 
equipping  superfluous  colleges  and  pretended  universi- 
ties in  this  countr}^  had  been  bestowed  in  endowing 
and  equipping  a  large  number  of  classical  schools  of 
the  highest  order,  the  colleges  themselves  and  the  high- 
er education  of  the  countr}^  would  long  ago  have  been 
lifted  to  a  higher  position.  Perhaps  we  should  have  been 
ready  by  this  time  for  the  inauguration  of  the  American 
University — that   much  talked   of  institution  which  so 


276  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

many  long  to  see,  and  complain  that  were  it  not  for 
the  stupidity  and  obstinacy  of  the  colleges,  it  would  have 
long  ago  come  into  being.  Will  it  ever  appear  ?  When 
and  by  what  methods  will  it  begin  to  exist  ? 

We  answer,  it  will  not  come  into  being  by  jDremature- 
ly  introducing  its  studies  and  methods  into  the  college. 
Nor  will  it  be  hastened  by  overloading  the  last  year  of 
the  college  course  by  a  great  variety  of  studies,  a  little 
knowledge  of  which  is  desirable,  and  a  short  course  of 
lectures  upon  which  is  therefore  prescribed.  The  spirit 
of  crani^  and  of  the  superficial  and  mechanical  mastery 
of  a  few  elements  of  many  sciences,  is  the  curse  of  the 
colleges  as  they  are.  To  intensify  this  tendency  as 
has  been  done  persistently  for  the  past  generation  is  to 
commit  the  worst  of  all  blunders.  The  university  will 
exist  only  when  professors  are  found  capable  of  teaching 
more  than  the  elements  of  the  branches  which  they  pro- 
fess, and  when  pupils  are  found  who  are  willing  to  pursue 
them  with  the  requisite  thoroughness  and  perseverance. 
We  have  a  few  professors  who  are  already  qualified  to 
give  as  valuable  and  as  profound  instruction  as  any  pro- 
fessors in  European  universities.  Some  of  them,  indeed, 
are  so  occupied  by  college  work,  or  by  bread  and  butter 
labors,  as  to  lack  the  time  and  opportunity  to  prepare 
and  give  the  formal  instruction  which  organized  uni- 
versity classes  would  require.  Others  have  more  leisure 
and  would  delight  in  nothing  so  much  as  in  giving  ad- 
vanced instruction  to  pupils  competent  and  desirous  to 
receive  it.  The  chief  desideratum,  however,  is  a  suffi- 
cient number  of  pupils  in  any  one  place  to  furnish  an 
inspiring  audience,  and  to  warrant  the  beginnings  of 
organization.     The  experiments  already  made  at  Har- 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  277 

vard  and  Yale  are  not  without  promise.  We  are  glad 
to  see  that  another  step  forward  has  recently  been  tak- 
en at  Harvard  in  the  direction  of  systematic  university 
instruction.  The  serious  desiderata  in  this  tentative 
course  would  be  acknowledged  most  readily  by  its  orig- 
inators and  friends.  It  deserves,  however,  the  best 
wishes  for  success — a  good  word  for  the  enterprise  which 
it  exhibits,  if  it  did  not  for  its  promise  of  good.  We 
trust  that  this  movement  will  be  followed  in  the  most 
enterprising  spirit  in  every  institution  where  it  is  prac- 
ticable and  that  special  instruction  and  special  classes 
will  be  organized  as  rapidly  as  possible. 

It  must  be  confessed,  however,  that  the  number  of 
persons  in  this  country'  is  exceedingly  small,  who  are 
competent  and  desirous  to  receive  university  instruction 
in  branches  which  are  not  professional,  and  who  are  also 
not  able  and  desirous  to  go  to  the  continent.  Or 
rather,  we  should  say,  the  attractions  of  travel,  with  the 
opportunity  of  becoming  familiar  with  two  or  three 
European  languages,  are  so  decided  as  to  present  a  very 
serious  obstacle  to  the  development  of  provisions  for 
any  university  studies  except  those  which  are  strictly 
professional.  Not  a  few  professional  students  even,  seek 
to  prosecute  or  to  finish  their  studies  in  France  or  Ger- 
many. Of  a  large  class  graduating  at  Yale  within  a 
short  period,  a  fifth  visited  Europe  within  the  first  year. 
Students  who  have  the  leisure  to  give  a  year  or  two  to 
general  studies  in  history,  literature,  philology,  or  any 
branch  of  philosophy,  usually  have  the  means  of  cross- 
ing the  ocean,  and,  when  they  have  done  this,  the  ex* 
penses  of  living  are  lower  than  at  home,  and  they  meet 
many  attractions  which,  for  a  long  time,  will  continue  to 


278  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

be  fascinating  to  the  natives  of  a  new  country  like  ours. 
It  is  ridiculous  to  hear  such  empty  gasconading  as  has 
been  written  within  a  few  months,  to  the  effect  that  it 
would  not  be  very  long  before  European  students  will 
flock  to  some  great  American  university  as  freely  as 
American  scholars  now  go  to  Europe.  We  feel  no  dis- 
position to  depreciate  American  scholarship  or  Ameri- 
can thought.  We  are  forward  to  acknowledge  that  some 
among  us  have  no  reason  to  be  ashamed  when  measured 
by  their  peers  in  Europe.  But  a  great  university  can- 
not be  built  up  in  a  day  even  in  an  old  country  ;  and  in  a 
new  country,  not  till  many  generations  have  provided  the 
material.  That  material  is  something  more  than  a  few 
millions  of  money  and  a  score  of  brilliant  occasional 
lecturers.  A  great  community  of  highly  cultured  schol- 
ars and  literary  men  must  first  exist  before  the  repre- 
sentatives of  every  branch  of  knowledge  can  appear 
who  are  competent  to  teach  the  choicest  youth  of  the 
world,  and  before  a  large  body  of  American  pupils  will 
be  satisfied  that  they  can  find  no  advantage  in  going 
abroad.  These  facts  should  teach  us  good  sense,  which 
is  another  name  for  modesty  in  our  expectations  and 
promises.  But  they  furnish  no  reason  why  the  begin- 
nings of  university  instruction  and  study  should  not  be 
made  at  once  in  connection  with  all  the  leading  col- 
leges. The  professional  schools  already  exist,  and  have 
flourished  for  many  years,  and  so  far  as  they  have  given 
thorough  and  scientific  instruction,  and  have  required 
an  adequate  preparation,  have  been  the  disjecta  me7nbra 
of  a  proper  university.  Let  schools  of  philology  and 
modern  literature,  including  the  English,  of  the  higher 
mathematics   and   physics,  of  geography   and  geology, 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  279 

of  metaphysical,  moral,  political,  and  social  science  be 
added — or,  in  brief,  let  a  department  of  philosophy,  in 
its  comprehensive  import,  be  added  to  the  schools  of 
law,  medicine,  and  theology,  and  we  have  the  skeleton 
of  a  university  complete.  We  must  be  content  with 
small  beginnings  in  such  a  department  for  the  reasons 
already  given. 

One  thought  we  have  omitted.  The  sentiment  of  the 
cultivated  classes  of  the  country  must  favor  the  love 
of  learning  for  its  own  sake,  and  the  pursuit  of  study 
for  the  satisfaction  it  brings,  and  the  manhood  which  it 
forms,  if  University  professors  are  to  be  encouraged  by 
the  presence  of  even  a  small  number  of  pupils  knock- 
ing at  their  doors.  As  long  as  study  is  valued  for  the 
money  or  position  it  procures,  and  the  theory  of  disci- 
plinary study  and  of  liberal  culture  is  openly  scouted  in 
the  forum  and  the  market  place,  and  attacked  in  the 
newspaper  and  the  review,  so  long  will  the  true  univer- 
sity be  unknown  among  us.  It  is  in  the  name  and  in- 
terest of  true  progress  and  of  real  reform  that  we  pro- 
test against  the  supercilious  and  positive  spirit  in  which 
the  professed  guides  of  the  people — some  of  them  grad- 
uates of  colleges — have  treated  the  aims  and  objects  of 
education,  as  well  as  the  contemptuous  and  ignorant  ap- 
peals to  the  prejudices  and  ignorance  of  their  readers 
which  many  have  allowed  themselves  to  employ.  No  ar- 
gument to  our  minds  is  so  convincing  that  we  need  to  re- 
tain the  old  theory  and  practice  of  liberal  culture,  if 
we  would  sustain  high  toned  thoroughness  in  the  for- 
mation of  our  principles  and  high  toned  courtesy  in  the 
expression  of  them,  as  the  lamentable  lack  of  both 
these  qualities  which  has  been  exhibited  in  many  lead- 


28o  THE    AMERICAN    COLLEGES 

ing  articles  of  the  American  press,  upon  the  subject  of 
college  education  and  college  reform. 

We  are  not  sorry  however  that  these  discussions  have 
arisen,  or  that  this  clamor  for  reform  in  the  American 
colleges  has  been  raised,  however  ignorant  and  unreas- 
oning it  may  be.  We  neither  expect  nor  desire  it  to 
cease.  We  shall  not  be  surprised  if  the  excitement 
which  now  moves  like  a  quickening  breeze  shall  rage 
like  a  furious  storm.  It  connot  fail  to  be  useful,  even 
if  its  temporary  effects  are  injurious  to  the  colleges  and 
disastrous  to  the  youths  whose  critical  discontent  it  may 
stimulate  to  excess  and  whose  untamed  conceit  it  may 
flatter  into  folly.  We  are  quite  willing  that  the  whole 
subject  of  the  higher  education  of  the  country  should 
be  thoroughly  discussed  if  it  can  be  discussed  by  those 
who  are  competent  to  judge  of  its  merits.  We  are  anx- 
ious that  every  reform  in  college  education  should  be 
introduced  which  can  be  shown  to  be  required  and  that 
instructors  and  pupils  should  be  invigorated  by  the 
most  quickening  sense  of  their  responsiblities  to  the 
community  and  the  country  for  whose  service  it  is  the 
duty  of  both  to  labor. 

The  American  public,  though  often  imposed  on,  is 
not  incapable  of  wise  judgments  in  respect  to  educa- 
tion. It  is  the  only  community  in  the  world  which  by 
its  voluntary  offerings  endows  colleges  and  higher  insti- 
tutions on  a  liberal  scale.  Its  princely  benefactors  and 
its  humble  contributors  have  had  the  sagacity  to  appre- 
ciate the  advantages  which  the  colleges  bring  to  the 
public  and  the  generosity  to  furnish  the  money  which 
they  have  required.     This  public  may  be  for  a  moment 


AND    THE    AMERICAN    PUBLIC.  28 1 

disturbed  in  its  accustomed  faith  in  the  desirableness 
of  the  liberal  education  which  is  furnished  by  the  col- 
leges, but  it  will  not  readily  withdraw  its  confidence  in 
the  deliberate  judgments  of  those  who  are  competent  to 
decide  such  questions.  It  is  to  such  persons  alone  that 
our  arguments  have  been  addressed.  All  that  we  ask 
of  such  is  that  they  may  be  fairly  considered. 

We  began  this  discussion  with  no  expectation  that 
our  contributions  to  it  would  exceed  the  limits  of  a  sin- 
gle paper.  But  the  single  paper  has  expanded  into  a 
volume,  for  the  production  of  which  the  interest  and 
importance  of  the  subject  must  be  our  apology,  if  any 
apology  is  needed. 


AFTER-THOUGHTS   ON    COLLEGE  AND 
SCHOOL  EDUCATION. 


I. 

PREPARATORY    SCHOOLS 

FOR 

COLLEGE   AND  UNIVERSITY  LIFE. 


(Read  before  the  National  Educational  Association  at  Detroit.  Michigan, 
August  s.  1874.) 


The  conviction  seems  to  be  gradually  dawning  upon 
the  American  public,  that  an  adequate  preparation  is 
as  necessary  to  the  highest  success  in  the  college  or 
university,  as  a  faithful  use  of  the  opportunities  and  in- 
struction of  either.  The  community  is  slowly  but  surely 
learning,  that  without  a  supply  of  good  upper  schools, 
the  supply  of  colleges  may  greatly  exceed  the  demand, 
— that  the  preparatory  processes  of  intellectual  culture 
are  as  necessary  to  its  well-ripened  fruit,  as  are  the  ger- 
mination of  spring,  and  the  bloom  and  leafage  of  summer, 
to  the  maturing  and  ripening  work  of  autumn.  Those 
who  have  looked  into  the  statistics  of  our  educational 
appliances  are  not  more  astonished  at  the  over-supply  and 
overgrowth  of  colleges  in  both  newer  and  older  States, 
than  they  are  to  learn  that  in  some  of  the  newer  States 
the  number  of  chartered  colleges  is  greater  than  of  well- 
organized  institutions  in  which  students  can  obtain  a 
decent  preparation  for  college. 


284  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

The  writer  of  this  paper  does  not  propose  to  discuss 
this  important  and  fruitful  topic  systematically  or  ex- 
haustively. He  ventures  only  to  offer  a  few  suggestions 
in  regard  to  it,  chiefly  of  a  practical  character. 

HISTORICAL    VIEW  OF  SCHOOLS  PREPARATORY  FOR 
COLLEGE. 

Harvard  College  was  founded  in  1636.  In  1647  the 
Massachusetts  Colony  enacted  a  law  that  every  town 
of  one  hundred  families  should  maintain  a  school,  the 
teacher  of  which  should  be  ''  able  to  instruct  youth  so  far 
as  they  may  be  fitted  for  the  university."  This  law, 
though  imperfectly  obeyed,  introduced  very  early  into 
Massachusetts  and  New  England  a  small  number  of  clas- 
sical schools,  and  subsequently  prepared  the  way  for  the 
endowment  of  a  few  academies  in  which  young  men  were 
prepared  for  the  colleges.  A  large  number,  however, 
of  the  students  in  the  New  England,  and,  indeed,  in  all 
of  the  American  colleges  before  the  present  century, 
were  prepared  by  clergymen  and  private  teachers.  Here 
and  there  an  academy  has  been  specially  endowed  which 
has  rendered  eminent  service.  The  Hopkins  Grammar 
Schools  of  Hartford  and  New  Haven,  Conn. ;  the  Hop- 
kins Academy,  in  Hadley,  and  Phillips  Academy,  at  An- 
dover,  Mass. ;  Phillips  Exeter  Academy,  at  Exeter,  N.  H. ; 
Amherst  Academy,  in  Massachusetts :  and,  later,  the 
Williston  Seminary,  at  Easthampton,  Mass.  ;  and  a  few 
of  still  more  recent  origin  will  occur  to  many  of  my 
hearers.  Among  the  public  schools  of  the  country,  the 
Boston  Latin  School  was,  for  a  long  time,  almost  the  only 
classical  school  supported  by  public  taxation,  and  free  to 
all,  at  which  students  could  be  prepared  for  college.     It 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  285 

was  pre-eminent  alike  for  the  thoroughness  of  the  educa- 
tion which  it  gave,  and  the  freeness  with  which  this  was 
proffered  to  all  the  residents  of  Boston.  Numerous  pri- 
vate schools  have  also  been  built  up  by  the  zeal  and  repu- 
tation of  distinguished  teachers,  some  of  which  have  been 
perpetuated  under  a  succession  of  masters.  The  States 
southwest  of  New  England,  before  the  War  of  Indepen- 
dence, depended  more  generally  upon  private  teaching  for 
preliminary  classical  tuition  :  now  and  then  a  secluded 
clergyman,  and  here  and  there  an  eminent  Scotch  and 
Irish  classicist,  gave  excellent  instruction.  The  States 
subsequently  settled  from  New  England  have  provided 
themselves  somewhat  extensively  with  schools  of  a  higher 
order,  usually  without  endowments,  and  generally  as  the 
result  of  a  special  interest  in  education  on  the  part  of 
an  intelligent  community,  or  of  the  private  enterprise  of 
some  devoted  teacher.  The  State  of  New  York  has  been 
singularly  well  provided  with  schools  or  academies  of  a 
higher  order,  in  many  of  which  classical  instruction  is 
promised.  Many  f  these  have  received  a  somewhat 
liberal  annual  subsidy,  under  the  direction  of  the  Regents 
of  the  University  of  New  York.  The  great  majority  of 
the  so-called  academies  of  the  newer  and  older  States 
have,  however,  not  made  it  their  chief  design  to  prepare 
students  for  college,  and  many  which  have  professed  to  do 
this  have  very  imperfectly  fulfilled  their  promises.  With 
the  reorganization  of  the  public  school  systems  of  the  older 
States,  and  the  foundation  of  such  systems  in  vigorous 
operation,  (almost  simultaneously,  in  many  cases,  with  the 
redemption  of  the  soil  from  the  forest  and  the  wild  prairie,) 
provision  has  been  made  in  not  a  few  of  the  most  flour- 
ishing, for  a  system  of  high  schools,  which  propose,  in 


286  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

theory,  to  give  a  thorough  preparation  for  the  college 
curriculum.  The  State  of  Michigan  has  distinguished 
itself  above  all  the  States  of  the  Union,  not  only  by  the 
liberal  endowment  of  its  university,  and  the  economical 
administration  of  the  funds  provided,  but  by  furnishing 
in  many  of  its  large  towns  —  at  the  public  expense  —  a 
high  school  in  which  pupils  can  be  prepared  for  the 
University.  But,  in  most  of  the  other  new  States,  the 
several  colleges  have  found  the  appliances  so  defective 
for  the  preparation  of  students  even  for  their  small 
classes,  as  to  be  compelled  to  provide  a  preparatory 
department,  under  the  direction  of  their  boards  of  trus- 
tees, and  faculties. 

No  intelligent  educator  ought  to  be  surprised,  in  view 
of  these  facts,  that  the  preparation  for  college  instruction 
is  found  to  be  unsatisfactory  in  many  particulars,  nor  that 
it  is  so  difficult  to  suggest  adequate  remedies  for  many 
defects. 

DEFECTS  OBSERVED  IN  PREPARATORY  EDUCATION. 
—  THE  FIRST  DEFECT. 

We  name  some  of  these  defects.  The  selection  of 
studies  a?id  of  authors  is  far  fro?n  uniforin.  For  this 
defect,  the  colleges  are  partly  responsible.  They  do  not 
prescribe  the  same  number  of  topics,  nor  the  same  text- 
books, or  their  equivalents.  We  do  not  blame  the  col- 
leges for  this  inequality.  It  is  very  natural  and  almost 
inevitable  that  they  should  adapt  their  rules  to  the  cus- 
toms of  the  section  of  the  country  in  which  they  are 
placed.  But  these  again  are  partly  formed  by  the  tradi- 
tions of  bodi  colleges  and  schools.  The  fact  cannot  be 
questioned  that   a  very   considerable   diversity  prevails. 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  287 

That  this  is  a  serious  evil  is  obvious.  In  England,  where 
a  few  schools  give  character  to  the  classical  teaching  of 
the  whole  kingdom,  the  smallest  amount  of  reading  and 
the  fewest  topics  for  study  which  may  serve  to  prepare  a 
student  for  the  course  are  fixed  by  traditions,  which  are 
as  unchanging  and  as  well  known  as  Magna  Charta  itself. 
In  Scotland  the  parochial  schools  obey  uniform  customs. 
In  Germany  the  curriculum  of  the  gymnasia  is  fixed  by 
uniform  laws  w^hich  are  established  by  the  highest  au- 
thority of  the  State,  and  enforced  by  inspections  and 
examinations,  which  are  as  particular  and  as  exacting  as  a 
military  bureaucracy  can  enforce.  But  in  this  country 
the  traditions  are  neither  fixed  nor  uniform,  and  the  en- 
forcement by  the  schools  and  colleges  themselves  of  the 
several  traditions  which  they  inherit  and  the  special 
laws  which  they  make,  is  notoriously  lax  and  variable. 
If  one  college  exacts  on  paper  a  larger,  and  another  a 
smaller  quantum  of  preparatory  work,  it  may  easily  happen 
that  the  college  which  proposes  the  largest  amount  in  its 
catalogue  should  actually  be  content  with  less  than  the 
college  which  limits  itself  to  a  smaller.  It  is  patent  to 
the  most  superficial  and  confiding  reader  of  catalogues 
and  announcements,  that  the  quantity  of  preparatory 
reading  required  neither  determines  the  quality  of  the 
work  bestowed,  nor  the  value  of  its  results.  Every 
teacher  knows  that  a  rapid  and  uncritical  study  of  a 
Latin  or  Greek  author,  and  a  superficial  smattering  of 
algebra  and  geometry,  may  be  achieved,  and  yet  the 
student  be  entirely  unprepared  to  follow  the  curriculum 
to  which  these  studies  are  the  essential  preliminary. 


288  PREPARATORY    SCHOOLS    FOR 


THE  REMEDY  PROPOSED. 

The  remedy  for  this  evil  proposed  by  educational  theo- 
rists is  a  very  simple  oiie^  afid  in  their  view  is  certain  to 
be  effectual.  "  Let  the  leading  colleges  agree  upon  some 
curriculum  and  adhere  to  it,  and  support  one  another  in 
enforcing  it.  Let  them  make  the  standard  for  admission 
uniform  for  themselves  and  they  will  certainly  lift  the  stand- 
ard for  all.  The  colleges  which  will  not  conform  will  be 
forced  to  a  secondary  rank  and  a  lower  reputation.  The 
pressure  on  the  schools  will  in  time  become  efficient,  and 
they  will  be  compelled  to  adopt  the  highest  standard — 
and  this  standard  will  be  universally  accepted."  This 
sounds  well  in  theory,  but  when  the  attempt  is  made  to 
apply  it,  it  fails  for  several  reasons  :  First  of  all,  the 
colleges  are  not  inclined  to  agree  upon  a  uniform  stand- 
ard of  acquirement.  Nor  if  they  should  agree  would 
they  trust  one  another  in  the  enforcement — not  so  much 
because  they  doubt  one  'another's  faith,  as  because  there 
must  inevitably  occur  so  many  cases  for  exception.  As 
long  as  our  country  is  young  and  new  in  culture,  yet 
vigorous  and  enterprising  in  its  activity  and  hope  on  the 
one  hand  ;  as  long  as  the  schools  are  new  and  the  teachers 
diverse  in  culture  and  capacity,  on  the  other  ;  as  long  as 
so  many  vigorous  but  rough-handed  young  men  are  in- 
spired with  a  late  but  overmastering  desire  to  be  edu- 
cated, so  long  will  a  pressure  be  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  colleges  to  relax  from  their  rigor  in  respect  to  the 
quantity  and  the  quality  of  preparatory  work.  This  ])res- 
sure  will  be  constantly  enforced  by  the  experience  that 
trivial  and  even  serious  defects  have  been  so  often  more 
than  overcome  in  a  few  months'  trial  of  the   first  vear  in 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  289 

college.  It  is  useless  to  urge  that  by  a  steady  persistence 
and  exacting  rigor  the  schools  will  be  finally  forced  into 
compliance,  and  that  even  new  schools  of  a  higher  order 
will  be  supplied  at  the  imperative  demands  of  the  col- 
leges. The  newer  and  feebler  colleges  are  in  no  condi- 
tion to  exact  conditions  before  they  confer  their  gifts. 
Their  function  is  rather  to  persuade  the  ignorant  to  re- 
ceive gifts,  the  value  of  which  they  imperfectly  understand; 
and  to  persuade  rather  than  compel.  The  older  and 
more  independent  colleges  are  often  greatly  indebted  to 
the  salutary  examples  of  successful  perseverance,  which 
an  occasional  relaxation  of  rigid  prescriptions  brings  into 
their  society.  Every  year  brings  some  striking  proof  that 
the  capacity  to  grapple  successfully  with  the  college  cur- 
riculum cannot  in  every  case  be  tested  or  measured  by 
the  number  of  books  of  Virgil  which  have  been  read,  or 
the  number  of  demonstrations  in  Geometry  which  have 
been  mastered.  Whatever  theory  of  preparation  be  set 
up,  the  fact  remains  unchanged,  that  in  such  a  country  as 
ours,  a  portion  of  the  first  year  in  college  must  for  the 
present,  within  certain  limits,  be  regarded  as  a  fairer  and 
more  wdiolesome  test  of  a  student's  capacity  to  go  on 
with  success,  than  the  minutest  and  most  rigid  entrance 
examination. 

THE  SECOND  DEFECT. 

It  is  charged  as  a  second  defect  thai  the  amoimt  of 
pj'eparatory  study  is  far  too  small.  The  curriculum  for 
entrance,  it  is  contended,  ought,  in  all  reason,  to  com- 
prehend and  cover  the  elements  of  every  study  which  is 
to  be  taught  in  college,  be  these  studies  more  or  less 
numerous.  The  colleges,  it  is  urged,  ought  not  to  be  in 
13- 


290  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

any  sense  elementary  schools,  of  any  branch  of  knowl- 
edge. They  should  steadily  and  sturdily  refuse  to  con- 
descend to  such  ignoble  and  time-consuming  service  as 
this.  They  are  not  schools  in  any  sense,  nor  ought  their 
officers  to  be  forced  to  do  the  work  of  pedagogues.  Let 
them  assert  their  independence,  and  they  can  force  the 
preparatory  schools  into  compHance,  and  they  will  them- 
selves rise  to  the  dignity  and  the  emancipation  of  their 
appropriate  activities.  If  they  will  but  stamp  upon  the 
earth  with  an  energy  sufficiently  emphatic,  schools  will  be 
called  into  being  which  will  perform  these  servile  occupa- 
tions. General  statements  of  this  kind,  however  confi- 
dently made,  are  found  to  have  little  weight  when  con- 
fronted with  the  facts  and  considerations  already  referred 
to.  So  far  as  the  necessity  to  teach  the  elements  of 
any  branch  of  knowledge  is  a  burden  upon  the  colleges, 
it  is  incidental  to  the  transitive  condition  in  which  a 
young  and  rapidly  growing  country  must  for  a  long  time 
find  itself.  We  cannot,  'however,  assent  to  the  general 
and  unqualified  statement  that  the  colleges  are  not  called 
to  teach  the  elements  of  any  branch  of  knowledge. 
There  are  many  sciences  of  which  the  elements  cannot 
be  grasped  before  the  mind  has  been  matured  by  pro- 
tracted discipline.  To  teach  the  elements  of  many  sci- 
ences to  mature  minds,  may  be  the  most  exalted  occupa- 
tion of  the  most  gifted  teacher.  The  successful  commu- 
nication or  illustration  of  many  elementary  truths,  presup- 
poses at  once  the  largest  acquisitions  and  the  most  con- 
sunimate  training.  The  teacher  who  is  impatient  of  the 
duty  of  perpetually  referring  to  the  first  principles  of  the 
science  which  he  professes,  shows  that  he  himself  is  igno- 
rant of  the  first  principles  of  the  science  of  teaching. 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  29I 


SPECIAL  FAILURES— THE  WANT  AND  WASTE  OF  TIME. 

Dismissing  these  more  general  defects,  we  notice 
two  special  failures  in  the  working  of  our  preparatory- 
schools,  which  are  in  striking  contrast,  and  yet  some- 
what closely  allied.  These  are  the  want  afid  the  waste 
of  time.  It  is  not  easy  to  say  which  is  the  most  serious 
of  the  two.  Insufficiency  of  time  is  observed  in  schools 
that  are  imperfectly  furnished  and  incompetently  manned, 
and  of  pupils  who  are  under  so  strong  a  pressure  to  make 
rapid  advance,  that  they  cannot  or  will  not  listen  to 
wise  counsels.  The  want  of  money,  the  wishes  or  will- 
fulness of  friends,  age,  a  sanguine  and  ignorant  self-con- 
fidence, the  advice  of  ignorant  or  wrong-headed  coun- 
sellors, or  some  other  reason,  one  or  all,  is  pleaded 
against  the  application  of  those  rules  which  long  experi- 
ence has  established.  Many  a  student  has  undertaken  to 
do  the  work  of  two  years  in  one,  and  has  in  consequence 
been  lamed  for  life,  in  his  intellectual  habits  and  his  intel- 
lectual acquisitions  ;  perhaps  he  has  been  disabled  in 
his  moral  character,  as  well  as  soured  and  discouraged 
in  temper.  His  conceptions  of  study  have  been  perma- 
nently vitiated.  His  satisfaction  in  study  has  been  greatly- 
diminished  if  not  altogether  precluded;  while  his  self- 
confidence  and  self-respect  have  been  greatly  impaired. 
Such  a  student  may  have  had  the  noblest  aspirations. 
His  purposes  may  have  been  pure  and  his  character 
elevated,'  but  the  ways  of  learning  and  discipline  in  col- 
lege will  have  been  to  him  the  farthest  from  being  ways 
of  pleasantness.  He  will  be  happy  if  he  shall  be  able  to 
recover  himself  in  the  later  years  of  college  life,  in  his 
professional  studies,  or  afterwards,   and  if  the   evil  and 


292  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

wrong  which  he  has  suffered  do  not  occasion  life -long 
regret  or  bitter  reproach  to  himself  or  to  others. 

The  waste  of  time ^  in  the  technical  preparation  for  col- 
lege, is  not  infrequently  observed  in  older  communities, 
in  the  best  organized  schools,  and  in  those  pupils  whose 
external  circumstances  would  seem  to  be  the  most  favora- 
ble for  a  thorough  discipline.  The  boy  who  is  destined 
for  a  classical  education  is  too  often  either  prematurely 
set  to  the  study  of  Latin,  and  this  is  too  often  made  his 
principal  occupation  for  several  years,  in  such  a  sense  as 
to  exclude  the  energetic  pursuit  of  many  useful  studies,  or 
at  least  to  be  the  excuse  for  the  comparatively  unproduc- 
tive employment  of  some  of  the  most  important  years  of 
schooling.  It  is  Latin  in  the  morning,  Latin  at  evening ; 
Latin  at  home,  and  Latin  at  school.  If  the  boy  is  a  bright 
and  apt  scholar  his  time  is  wasted  in  useless  iterations  and 
vain  repetitions.  If  he  is  unapt  and  stolid,  his  classical 
lessons  become  a  task  and  a  pretext  for  neglecting  a  great 
variety  of  studies  which;  if  they  should  fail  to  awaken 
enthusiasm,  might,  at  least,  furnish  the  relief  of  variety. 
Greek  is  commenced  at  too  early  an  age,  with  similar  con- 
sequences, though  not  always  in  forms  so  obvious  or  so 
aggravated.  The  work  of  four  years  is  often  spread  over 
six  or  eight,  with  the  negative  consequences  of  excluding 
much  valuable  knowledge  and  the  stimulus  of  diversified 
and  exciting  occupations,  and  the  positive  harm  of  disgust- 
ing the  pupil  with  wearisome  monotony,  and  confirming 
him  in  habits  of  mechanical  and  listless  drudgery. 

THE    NEGLECT    OF    GENERAL    CULTURE. 

Incidental  to  this  waste  of  time  is  the  neglect  of  general 
culture  which   often    follows  from    the    arrangement  of 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  293 

Studies  ill  our  schools  of  preparation.  This  defect  is  not 
always  to  be  ascribed  to  the  waste  of  time,  for  it  not 
infrequently  follows  from  the  want  of  time  in  which  to  pur- 
sue a  generous  curriculum.  Whatever  be  the  occasion, 
the  defect  itself  is  acknowledged  to  be  very  serious.  The 
college  curriculum  not  only  presupposes  a  mastery  of  the 
elements  of  Greek  and  I^atin  and  the  pure  mathematics, 
with  the  mental  discipHne  which  these  studies  imply,  but 
also  a  competent  knowledge  of  the  English  language,  and 
such  an  acquaintance  with  the  universe  in  which  we  live 
as  is  gained  from  the  elements  of  history  and  geography 
on  the  one  hand,  and  the  elements  of  physics  and  natural 
history  on  the  other.  The  college  curriculum  is  emphat- 
ically called  liberal,  because  it  proposes  not  erudition  so 
much  as  culture  ;  not  facts,  not  reflection,  not  feats  of 
memory,  not  even  the  mechanical  mastery  of  abstractions  ; 
but  the  power  of  subtle  and  ready  thought,  and  of  apt 
and  finished  expression.  But  if  it  proposes  culture  as  its 
end  and  aim,  it  supposes  some  culture  as  ks  condition. 
The  college  studies  presuppose  that  the  pupil  can  read  his 
mother  tongue  without  hesitation  ;  that  he  can  spell  cor- 
rectly— alas !  that  this  is  not  always  true  ;  and  also  that 
he  is  somewhat  at  home  in  that  knowledge  which  observa- 
tion and  memory  have  gathered  and  preserved  of  the 
world  of  nature  and  the  ways  of  men.  Such  knowledge 
and  culture  cannot  be  obtained  without  some  familiarity 
with  all  the  branches  named.  Without  insisting  on  some 
knowledge  of  one  or  two  modern  languages,  as  imparting 
a  special  advantage  for  the  more  intelligent  and  less 
mechanical  pursuit  of  the  classics,  it  would  seem  that 
this  generous  culture  may  be  rightfully  expected,  as  it  is 
certainly  imperatively  demanded,  for  the  most  successful 


294  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

prosecution  of  the  higher  education.  Such  is  the  theor}'. 
What  now,  are  the  facts  ?  The  facts  are,  that  the  prepa- 
ration of  the  majority  of  college  students  is  seriously 
defective  in  many  of  these  particulars.  Among  those 
students  who  are  most  highly  favored  in  their  opportuni- 
ties, we  find  that  many  are  furnished  with  the  amplest 
opportunities,  only  to  waste  them  all,  through  the  incom- 
petence or  unfaithfulness  of  instructors,  or  the  foolish 
indulgence  of  weak  or  ignorant  parents.  We  find,  also, 
that  many  others  who  are  well  trained  in  early  childhood, 
in  all  the  branches  essential  to  their  general  culture,  are 
no  sooner  admitted  to  the  classical  academy  or  high 
school,  than  these  so-called  English  studies  are  altogether 
omitted,  or,  driven  into  a  corner;  that  in  many  such 
schools,  under  the  plea  of  necessity,  or  shortness  of  time, 
or  in  obedience  to  the  demand  of  traditional  grammatisers, 
the  pedantries  and  mechanisms  of  philology  become  the 
absorbing  occupations,  and  "  the  drill "  of  etymology 
and  syntax,  with  the  abstractions  of  mathematics,  thrust 
aside  the  acquisitions  of  earlier  years,  till,  for  want  of  repe- 
tition, they  cease  to  interest,  and  are  practically  forgotten 
oi  despised.  Had  these  studies  been  carried  through  the 
classical  course,  in  more  liberal  and  intellectual  forms  ; 
had  they  been  resorted  to  as  a  relief  from,  and  often  as 
auxiliary  to,  the  more  abstract  occupations  with  the 
grammar  and  the  dictionary,  these  acquisitions  of  child- 
hood would  have  stimulated  the  dawning  reflections  of 
youth,  and  the  drudgery,  which  is  more  or  less  insepara- 
ble from  grammatical  linguistics,  would  have  been  more 
cheerfully  endured,  and  more  intelligently  performed. 
We  do  not  blame  the  trustees  and  instructors  of  prepara- 
tory schools,  altogether,  or  chiefly,  for  this  state  of  things. 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  295 

We  only  notice  the  fact  that  it  exists,  and  that  the  col- 
leges suffer  from  it  most  seriously.  The  fact  is  too 
notorious  to  be  denied,  that  not  a  few  of  the  pupils  from 
the  most  favored  communities  and  the  best-furnished  and 
best-conducted  schools,  are  seriously  impeded  in  their 
general  culture  by  the  deadening  and  depressing  influence 
of  the  excessive  and  well-nigh  exclusive  occupation  of 
their  minds,  for  three  or  four  years,  with  what  are  tech- 
nically called  the  preparatory  studies.  Their  curiosity  is 
enfeebled  by  want  of  stimulus,  or  blunted  by  repression ; 
their  germinating  activities  of  thought  are  arrested,  and 
sometimes  blighted.  Even  the  results  of  their  disciplinary 
studies  resemble  more  closely  the  movements  of  a  smooth- 
ly-going machine  than  the  joyful  activities  of  a  spirit  fired 
by  increasing  enthusiasm,  and  inspired  with  ardent  pur- 
poses of  self-culture  and  self-improvement.  We  insist 
most  earnestly  upon  the  indispensable  value  of  classical 
and  mathematical  studies  as  a  discipline.  We  do  not  for- 
get that  the  age  of  boyhood  is  not  uniformly  animated  by 
an  intellectual  spirit  or  eminent  desire  for  culture,  nor 
that  boating  and  batting  are  esteemed  by  many  school- 
boys to  be  the  most  inspiriting  of  accompHshments. 
But,  for  this  very  reason,  it  follows  that  all  the  studies 
which  will  be  required  so  soon  as  the  period  of  earnest 
culture  begins  should  be  prosecuted  with  an  even  propor- 
tion. The  defects  of  general  culture  in  college  students 
are  also,  in  many  cases,  to  be  ascribed  to  the  lateness  of 
the  time  at  which  their  preparation  begins,  and  the  ab- 
sence of  early  advantages  for  study.  A  considerable 
number  of  students  in  our  best  colleges  have,  for  one 
reason  or  other,  enjoyed  but  few  advantages  for  intellec- 
tual culture  except  those  furnished   while  preparing  for 


296        •  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

college.  For  this  class  of  persons,  more  truly  than  for 
any  other,  is  it  desirable  that  the  preparation  for  col- 
lege life  should  not  be  exclusively  disciplinary  or  techni- 
cal. It  may  be  urged,  that  difficulties  of  this  kind  ought 
not  to  present  themselves  in  a  country  like  ours,  which 
abounds  in  high  schools,  and  academies,  in  all  of  which 
the  elements  of  what  are  called  English  studies  receive 
especial  attention ;  that  the  classical  schools  have  a  right 
to  expect  that  this  part  of  general  education  should  be 
attended  to  elsewhere,  and  should  only  be  required  to 
fulfill  their  appropriate  function  without  assuming  those 
of  the  lower  schools.  Whether  we  can  explain  these  de- 
fects of  general  culture  complained  of  or  not,  it  is  lamen- 
table that  they  exist,  notwithstanding  the  country  seems 
to  be  so  amply  furnished  with  the  appliances  for  what  is 
called  a  good  English  education.  For  deficiencies  of 
this  sort  the  colleges  are  not  responsible,  although  the 
education  which  they  seek  to  impart  must  be  seriously 
impaired  in  consequence.  It  is  for  those  who  are  directly 
responsible  for  the  secondary  schools  to  inquire  whether 
they  may  not  be  remedied.  Meanwhile  let  the  trustees 
and  managers  of  our  classical  seminaries  ask  themselves 
whether  a  pupil  is  in  any  sense  properly  fitted  for  college 
whose  general  culture  is  neglected  or  interfered  with  by 
the  zeal  and  exclusiveness  with  which  his  special  prepa- 
ration is  prosecuted. 

THE  REMEDY  FOR    THESE  DEFECTS  OF  GENERAL 
CULTURE. 

To  remedy  these  defects,  it  has  been  proposed  that  a 
large  addition  should  be  made  to  the  studies  required  for 
admission  to  college  ;  that  Physics  and  Natural  History, 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  297 

Geography  and  History,  English  Grammar  and  English 
Literature,  and  the  elements  of  French  and  German, 
should  all  be  required  at  the  entrance  examination.  The 
objections  and  difficulties  in  the  way  of  enforcing  at  once 
a  large  addition  to  the  preparatory  studies,  especially  in 
branches  of  this  more  general  character,  have  already  been 
referred  to.  They  are  so  manifold  and  formidable  as  to 
deter  the  writer  from  the  attempt  to  discuss  them  at 
length  in  this  paper.  He  is  frank  enough  to  confess  that 
he  looks  for  a  remedy  for  these  and  other  defects  in  the 
higher  education,  less  to  changes  which  may  be  imagined 
and  proposed  in  the  machinery  of  education,  than  to 
changes  which  may  be  effected  in  the  general  sentiment 
of  the  community  as  to  the  conditions  of  success,  and 
in  the  elevation  of  teachers  in  respect  to  their  own  cul- 
ture and  their  aims  and  power  of  wise  adaptation.  He 
even  ventures  to  add  what  to  some  may  seem  a  paradox  : 
that  not  a  few  of  the  evils  which  are  characteristic  of  the 
higher  education  in  all  its  stages,  may  be  directly  traced 
to  an  excessive  and  romantic  confidence  in  schemes  of 
study,  methods  of  instruction  and  examination,  and  to 
low  theoretical  and  practical  estimates  of  what  the  indi- 
vidual teacher  can  and  ought  to  do  in  the  way  of  inspira- 
tion and  instruction  when  he  has  the  earnest  and  laborious 
co-operation  of  pupils  and  guardians.  The  lavish  expen- 
diture of  wealth  on  school  and  college  buildings  and  ap- 
paratus, the  organization  of  complicated  systems  of  pub- 
lic education,  the  building  up  of  imposing  universities, 
the  confident  reiteration  which  promises  success  to  the  so- 
called  New  Education,  the  sanguine  encouragement  that 
children  and  youth  need  only  to  be  trained  in  the  study  of 
Nature,  to  be  inspired  with  a  universal  enthusiasm  for  study 


298  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

of  every  kind, — all  these  have,  by  perversion,  induced 
the  community  to  overlook  the  necessity  of  severe  and 
at  times  painful  labor  as  the  sole  condition  of  success, 
and  have  persuaded  teachers  and  managers  of  schools  that 
a  system  of  education  needs  only  to  be  skillfully  devised 
and  it  will  run  of  itself.  The  attractions  of  school-life  have 
been  in  some  cases  so  multiplied,  that  all  drudgery  in 
school  work  has  become  irksome  to  both  parents  and 
children.  Labor  and  diligence  were  formerly  enforced 
by  parents  and  teachers  upon  children  and  pupils,  but  now- 
adays pleasure  and  amusement  are  enforced  by  children 
and  pupils  upon  parents  and  teachers  as  the  conditions 
on  which  they  will  consent  to  patronize  a  school  or  a  col- 
lege. The  defects  of  preparatory  schools  are  due  in  no 
slight  degree  to  this  very  low  and  superficial  estimate  of 
the  necessity  of  close  and  patient  labor  as  the  condition 
of  successful  achievement. 

If  the  preparatory  education  for  college  is  to  be  judged 
of  by  the  important  improV^ements  in  apparatus  and  ap- 
pliances, it  has  certainly  made  great  progress.  Text- 
books of  every  description  were  never  before  so  good, 
and  never  so  accessible  as  at  the  present  moment.  The 
schools  were  never  so  well  organized.  The  importance 
of  a  skillfully  arranged  system  of  exercises  was  never  so 
generally  acknowledged,  and  so  generally  and  cheerfully 
submitted  to.  The  necessity  of  rigid  examinations  was 
never  more  generally  insisted  on  and  accepted  by  pupils 
and  parents.  The  science  and  art  of  teaching  was  never 
more  earnestly  discussed,  and  the  results  of  these  discus- 
sions were  never  more  readily  and  venturously  applied. 
A  scholar  of  the  last,  who  enters  a  first-class  preparatory 
school  of  the  present  generation,  and  looks  round  upon 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  299 

the  external  conveniences  of  the  apartments  and  furni- 
ture ;  who  next  observes  the  careful  and  rigid  division  into 
classes,  and  then  the  well-trained  teachers,  the  elaborate 
text-books,  and  the  manifold  illustrations  from  geography 
and  history,  almost  wishes  that  he  were  a  boy  again,  that 
he  might  begin  with  all  these  advantages.  When  he 
looks  for  the  results,  he  finds,  indeed,  much  formal  im- 
provement in  the  exactness  and  completeness  of  the  ex- 
aminations. But  when  he  looks  for  a  corresponding  real 
advance  in  the  awakening  of  mental  power,  in  the  disci- 
pline of  the  intellect  to  a  more  intelligent  method,  and  a 
more  complete  self-command,  and,  above  all,  when  he 
seeks  for  a  more  glowing  enthusiasm  for  science  and  art, 
and  the  evidences  of  a  wider  and  more  generous  culture, 
he  may  be  excused  if  he  sometimes  asks  whether  the  new 
classical  discipline  produces  results  which  are  at  all  com- 
mensurate with  the  immense  improvements  in  the  appli- 
ances and  methods  of  training.  A  candid  observer  has 
no  need  to  decide  this  question  of  the  relative  future  sac- 
cess  of  the  old  and  the  new  schooling,  in  order  to  find 
some  explanation  of  the  failures  of  the  new  to  accomplish 
all  that  might  be  expected  from  its  manifold  advantages. 

SPECIAL  DEFECTS  IN   THE   OPERATION  OF   MODERN 
SCHOOLS. 

The  first  of  these  is  the  spirit  oi  formalism  and routhie 
which  has  grown  up  in  our  modern  schools.  We  do  not 
mean  the  formalism  of  tradition,  nor  the  pedantry  of  the 
cloister,  such  as  had  been  consecrated  by  the  traditions 
and  romance  of  antiquity,  but  the  pedantry  of  spick-span 
newness,  the  formalism  of  marching  and  counter-march- 
ing, of  elaborate  and  unnecessary  explanations,  of  end- 


300  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

less  and  mechanical  repetitions,  of  an  artificial  mark- 
ing system,  and  a  worse  than  mechanical  reliance  upon 
examinations.  We  include  all  those  features  of  organiza- 
tion and  administration  which  tend  to  destroy  individual- 
ity in  the  pupil,  and  to  repress  humanity  in  the  teachers. 
Much  of  routine  and  machinery  is  the  necessary  result 
of  the  large  classes  of  the  schools,  and  the  small  number 
of  the  teachers.  We  complain  not  of  the  rigor  which 
attends  necessary  methods,  nor  of  the  strictest  impartial- 
ity in  their  application.  Machinery  and  routine  are  of 
enormous  advantage  when  they  are  wisely  used.  They 
give  to  school  laws  the  fixedness  and  inexorable  charac- 
ter of  the  laws  of  nature,  and  they  restrain  the  teaicher 
from  temptations  to  favoritism  and  ill-placed  sympathy. 
But  when  they  hide  earnestness,  or  excuse  indolence  in 
the  teacher,  and  encourage  cramming  in  the  scholar ; 
when  they  repress  the  freedom,  the  curiosity,  the  inde- 
pendence, and  the  enthusiasm  of  the  pupil ;  or  again, 
when  they  turn  the  teacher  into  a  mere  administrative  or 
teaching  machine,  who  withdraws  himself  from  all  per- 
sonal interest  in,  or  adaptation  to,  his  scholars,  they  very 
largely  restrict  the  highest  advantages  and  best  ends  of 
school  association  and  discipline.  Better  far  were  the 
old-fashioned  schools  and  the  old-fashioned  schoolmasters, 
with  their  noisy  and  disorderly  school-rooms,  their  scores 
of  classes,  and  total  lack  of  system,  in  which  there  were 
earnest  teachers,  and  curious  and  enthusiastic  learners, 
than  these  mechanical  drill-rooms  of  modern  times,  in 
which  teachers  and  pupils  are  reduced  as  nearly  as  pos- 
sible to  impersonal  enforcers  of  rules  and  givers  forth 
of  knowledge,  and  to  uninterested  receivers  of  lessons 
which   are   heard  without  interest,   and  recited  without 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE. 


301 


digestion.  Tendencies  and  evils  of  this  kind  are  not 
limited  to  secondary  and  upper  schools.  They  are  ob- 
served in  college  and  university  instruction  and  disci- 
pline. They  partly  grow  out  of  the  self-indulgent  temper 
of  the  times,  the  ambitious  vanity  of  learners,  and  the  hire- 
ling spirit  of  teachers.  They  are  explained  by  the  readi- 
ness in  the  public  to  mistake  feats  of  memory  and  glib- 
ness  of  utterance  for  solid  achievement  and  methodized 
reflection,  by  the  disposition  of  teachers  to  do  their  work 
as  easily  as  possible,  and  therefore  to  do  it  in  the  gross, 
with  a  feeble  sense  of  obligation  to  prepare  and  adapt 
their  instructions  to  the  capacities  and  the  disabilities  of 
individual  learners.  We  do  not  complain  that  in  our 
best  preparatory  schools  the  classes  are  large,  that  even 
the  "  little  folk"  of  the  lowest  forms  are  summoned  in 
crowded  groups  to  perform  their  tasks  in  grammatical  an- 
alysis or  composition,  or  that  order  and  alertness  are  en- 
forced by  military  methods,  nor  that  twenty  are  taught  to 
write  as  one  ;  nor  again,  that  misdemeanors  in  conduct  are 
noted  as  by  the  finger  of  destiny,  and  that  mistakes  and 
successes  are  set  down  as  by  the  recording  angel,  with 
never  a  tear  and  never  a  smile.  These  may  be  the 
necessary  incidents  of  large  classes  and  large  schools, 
which  may,  notwithstanding,  do  much  to  stimulate,  and 
inspire,  and  awe.  But  if  the  "  little  folk  "  under  such  a 
system,  are  never  to  have  a  word  of  special  advice  or 
special  sympathy,  if  the  instruction  might,  so  far  as  human 
adaptation  or  human  feeling  are  concerned,  have  pro- 
ceeded from  Faber's  talking  machine,  or  Babbage's  cal- 
culator, as  from  the  automaton  who  sits  at  the  teacher's 
desk,  then  the  teaching  fails  of  one  prime  essential  of 
success.     If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  teacher  first  studies, 


302  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

then  understands,  and  then  sympathizes  with  his  pupils, 
and  thus  wins  each  individual  of  the  score  of  little  folk 
that  make  up  his  classes,  the  excitements  and  even  the 
mechanism  of  the  class  may  help  rather  than  hinder 
the  successful  adaptations  and  kindly  sympathies  of  the 
teacher.  We  have  supposed  the  representative  class  to 
be  made  up  of  "  little  folk,"  because  these  are  the  most 
liable  to  suffer  from  the  mechanical  arrangements,  and 
the  impersonal  administration  of  which  we  complain,  and 
because  there  seems  just  now  to  be  a  strong  tendency  to 
transfer  to  the  lowest  forms  of  classical  schools  those 
methods  of  instruction  and  examination  which  are  suit- 
able only  to  the  more  advanced  and  mature  classes  of 
the  college. 

Closely  allied  to  mechanism  is  the  tendency  to  stimulate 
to  excess  the  spojitaneoiis  or  verbal  memory.  So  much 
of  early  culture  necessarily  depends  on  the  exercise  of 
memory,  and  so  easy  does  it  seem  to  many  teachers  and 
a  few  favored  pupils  to  fulfill  its  tasks,  that  excessive 
demands  are  often  made  upon  the  majority  of  pupils,  who 
are  deficient  in  this  aptitude.  Facts,  dates,  and  par- 
adigms, are  exacted,  with  little  judgment  of  their  value 
or  significance,  as  an  indication  of  promise  or  of  progress. 
The  more  inquisitive  and  thoughtful  pupils,  whose  mem- 
ories are  necessarily  more  slow,  because  their  intellects 
are  more  comprehensive  and  inquiring,  are  discouraged 
and  disgusted,  and  their  capacities  for  successful  achieve- 
ment fail  to  be  duly  developed.  As  a  consequence, 
many  of  the  most  promising  youth  very  early  lose  their 
faith  in  the  importance  of  school  and  college  discipline, 
and  content  themselves  with  Hmited  acquisitions  and 
feeble  efforts,  because  they  are  so  readily  outstripped  by 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  303 

their  more  showy  competitors,  with  larger  memories  and 
feebler  inteUisence. 


THE  THOUGHT  POWERS  SHOULD  NOT  BE  TAXED   TOO 
EXCL  USIVEL  Y. 

This  carries  us  to  the  opposite  evil  which  seems  to  be 
gaining  ground  in  our  classical  schools,  7'iz.  :  the  dispo- 
sition to  develop  pi'ematurely  the  generaliz'mg  faculty. 
Those  who  yield  to  this  tendency  are  unconsciously  mis- 
led by  the  truth  that  just  so  far  as  man  learns  to  use  his 
intellect  properly,  he  learns  to  generalize,  and  that  the 
sooner  he  is  trained  to  reason  in  any  sphere  of  knowl- 
edge the  more  rapidly  will  his  higher  powers  be  devel- 
oped. But  they  overlook  a  truth  which  is  equally  im- 
portant, viz. :  that  this  power  can  be  developed  but 
slowly,  and  that  it  is  not  till  the  work  of  disciplinary  or 
even  of  professional  education  is  complete,  that  the 
pupil  can  ordinarily  master  and  manipulate  either  abstract 
principles  or  highly  generalized  formulas.  The  secret 
of  its  training  in  education  lies  in  the  capacity  to  present 
the  concrete  in  such  order  and  by  such  relations  as  grad- 
ually to  suggest  and  enforce  the  abstract,  and  to  use  the 
abstract  in  such  ways  as  may  impart  light  and  interest  to 
the  concrete.  The  unskillful  teacher,  forasmuch  as  he 
has  learned  to  explain  and  rationalize  his  own  knowledge 
of  facts  by  a  few  comprehensive  principles,  leaps  to  the 
conclusion  that  he  can  begin  with  his  pupil  where  he  has 
finished  with  himself,  and  hence  essays  to  introduce  him  at 
once  to  the  metaphysics  of  algebra  and  geometry,  before 
he  is  familiar  with  the  conceptions  and  processes  of  either. 
He  gives  his  pupil  the  philosophy  of  case  formations 
and  inflections  in  order  that  he  may  more  readily  commit 


304  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

to  memory  the  paradigms,  or  forces  him  to  master  the 
last  devised  psychological  and  logical  theory  of  syntax 
before  he  has  learned  to  read  with  moderate  facility  a 
simple  Latin  or  Greek  sentence.  The  criterion  of  the 
teacher's  highest  success  is  conceived  to  be  the  number 
of  questions  which  he  can  torture  out  of  the  shortest 
lesson  in  the  classics,  or  the  number  of  ways  in  which 
the  simplest  arithmetical  or  algebraical  equation  can 
be  stated  or  applied.  The  splendid  generalizations 
and  the  far-reaching  results  of  the  new  philology  have 
reinforced  the  tendency,  always  prevalent,  to  this  pre- 
mature r-nd  literally  preposterous  method  of  teaching 
the  classics.  Not  a  few  teachers  of  the  new  grammar 
are  Uterally  bUnded  by  "the  excess  of  light"  which 
modern  researches  have  shed  upon  language,  so  far  as  to 
become  more  or  less  insensible  to  the  capacity  of  their 
pupils  to  appreciate  or  enjoy  what  seems  to  themselves 
most  lucid  and  instructive.  Certainly  the  complaint  is 
made,  whether  justly  or  unjustly,  that  general  and  special 
grammar  is  taught  in  college  and  school  rather  than  the 
ancient  languages,  or  more  exactly,  that  so  much  of 
these  languages  is  taught  as  may  be  needed  to  understand 
their  grammar  rather  than  so  much  of  the  grammar  as 
may  be  necessary  to  facilitate  the  mastery  of  the  lan- 
guages. We  believe  these  complaints  to  be  well  founded 
in  regard  to  both  colleges  and  schools.  The  evil  is 
greater  in  the  school  than  it  can  be  in  the  college,  and 
yet  it  is  an  evil  to  which  the  school  is  especially  exposed. 
Indeed,  our  classical  schools  seem  for  many  generations 
to  have  been  doomed  to  suffer  between  the  extremes  of 
too  much  or  too  little  grammar.  It  is  not  many  years 
since  the  Boston  Latin  School  assigned  the  first  year  of 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  305 

its  classical  curriculum  to  Adams'  Latin  Grammar  pure 
and  simple,  and  required  that  it  should  be  committed  to 
memory,  paradigms,  rules,  and  exceptions,  before  the 
pupil  was  permitted  to  read  the  simplest  sentence.  The 
"  new  grammar  "  is  full  of  exciting  interest  to  the  teacher 
who  can  find  volumes  of  poetic  history  in  inflections, 
and  prefixes,  and  whole  systems  of  metaphysical  phi- 
losophy in  syntactical  constructions.  But  to  the  unre- 
flecting pupil  the  "  new  grammar  "  is  as  dry  and  abstract 
as  the  old,  and  the  minds  of  the  new  pupils  of  each  new 
generation  are  as  incapable  of  historic  and  philosophic 
enthusiasm,  as  at  the  outset  were  the  minds  of  their 
teachers,  who  are  so  thoughtless  as  never  to  ask  how  it 
was  with  themselves  at  the  beginning.  Some  forty  years 
since  there  was  awakened  in  the  city  of  New  Haven  a 
strong  desire  on  the  part  of  several  graduates  of  Yale 
College  and  some  of  their  acquaintances  of  the  other 
sex,  to  study  the  German  language.  No  competent 
teacher  could  be  found  who  was  thought  to  be  so  desira- 
ble as  the  eminent  Dr.  J.  G.  Percival.  After  not  a 
little  diplomacy  and  many  misgivings  the  Doctor  con- 
sented to  teach.  His  classes  were  organized,  the  pupils 
were  full  of  hope  and  ardor,  the  Doctor  was  always 
punctual  in  attendance,  and  the  pupils  were  forward  to 
be  taught.  The  lessons  in  grammar  and  reading-book 
were  faithfully  prepared,  and  the  Doctor  inundated  his 
learners  with  a  flood  of  discourse.  But  alas  !  his  themes 
were  too  profound  for  their  comprehension.  The  flood 
of  his  learning  was  too  copious  and  rapid  to  leave  more 
than  the  scantiest  deposit.  The  scholars  were  intent  upon 
learning  to  read  German.  The  Doctor  had  no  thought 
but  that  he  was  teaching  them  to  read  German,  while  in 


3o6  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

fact  he  was  attempting  to  teach  them  the  comparative 
grammar  of  every  one  of  its  dialects.  His  pupils  were 
excited  and  interested  by  his  discourse,  but  they  failed  to 
learn  either  German  enough  to  understand  the  philology, 
or  philology  enough  to  give  interest  to  the  German,  and 
the  failure  of  the  enterprise  was  not  a  little  mortifying  to 
teacher  and  pupils.  This  example  is  extreme,  but  it  is 
fitted  to  suggest  abundant  food  for  reflection  to  the 
teachers  of  elementary  Latin  and  Greek. 

THE  DEFECT  OF   THE  INTELLECTUAL    SPIRIT. 

This  brings  us  to  the  most  comprehensive  of  the  de- 
fects of  preparatory  training,  viz. :  a  defect  in  its  intel- 
lectual spirit.  Teaching  can  never  be  truly  successful 
unless  it  be  given  by  a  thoughtful  and  sympathizing 
instructor,  who  watches  its  effect  in  developing  and  in- 
structing the  intellects  of  his  pupils.  The  organization  may 
be  faultless,  the  methods  may  be  perfect,  the  books  and 
appliances  for  illustration  may  be  all  that  can  be  desired, 
but  if  the  instructor  be  not  himself  intelligent  in  respect 
to  the  ends  and  aims  of  study ;  and  if  he  does  not  enter 
into  the  individual  capacities  and  needs  of  his  pupil,  and 
insinuate  himself  into  his  heart  by  a  kindly  care  for  his 
welfare,  he  cannot  be  a  successful  teacher.  So  much  has 
been  spoken  and  written,  of  late,  of  the  art  or  science  of 
teaching,  that  it  seems  to  be  almost  forgotten  that  if  there 
is  any  eminent  success  or  failure,  that  failure  or  success  is 
chiefly  to  be  ascribed  to  the  spirit  and  aims  of  the  teach- 
ers who  man  the  colleges  and  the  schools.  It  is  impor- 
tant to  remember  that  the  instructor  who  reposes  more 
upon  rules  and  methods  and  organization  than  upon  him- 
self, thereby  betrays  his  own  weakness,  if  not  his  incompe- 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  307 

tence.  The  most  promising  of  all  possible  indications  in 
our  preparatory  schools  would  be  a  high  intellectual  tone 
in  the  teachers  themselves.  A  teacher  with  such  a  spirit 
makes  every  description  of  teaching  a  vehicle  of  intellec- 
tual quickening.  No  subject  can  possibly  be  dry  in  his 
handling.  Least  of  all  can  classical  teaching,  with  its 
teeming  occasions  for  historical,  geographical,  and  Uterary 
illustration.  The  fact  that  so  many  pupils  come  to  the 
colleges  with  low  conceptions  and  scanty  achievements 
of  culture,  is  a  sad  commentary  upon  the  instruction 
which  they  receive  ;  as  the  poverty  of  thought  and  knowl- 
edge in  their  instructors  must,  in  its  turn,  be  ascribed  to 
the  institutions  in  which  the  instructors  themselves  have 
been  trained. 

THE    COLLEGES    TRAIN    THE    TEACHERS    OF    THE 
PREPARATORY   SCHOOLS. 

It  is  simply  just  that  we  should  not  forget  that  the 
colleges,  to  a  large  extent,  furnish  and  train  the  teachers 
of  these  schools,  and  that  they  are,  very  properly,  and 
ought  to  be  very  largely  held  responsible  for  the  quality  of 
the  instruction  which  is  given  by  the  men  whom  they 
train.  It  is  neither  courteous  nor  just  for  the  colleges  to 
assume  a  distant  attitude  or  to  put  on  supercilious  airs 
towards  the  preparatory  schools  of  the  country,  as  long 
as  they  are  themselves  so  directly  responsible  for  the 
classical  and  scientific  culture  of  the  teachers  who  man 
these  schools.  Rather  should  they  maintain  an  intimate 
intercourse  with  both  schools  and  their  teachers.  They 
should  acknowledge  their  own  responsibility  for  what 
they  are  and  are  to  be.  Not  only  should  their  own  in- 
strucuons  have  a  more  generous  and  intellectual  quality, 


3o8  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

but  they  should  furnish  those  of  their  pupils  who  purpose 
to  become  teachers,  special  and  ample  training  in  the 
science  of  elementary  instruction.  Every  college  ought 
to  aim  to  become  a  normal  school  for  the  training  of  the 
teachers  of  secondary  classical  schools.  It  ought  to  ani- 
mate this  training  with  the  highest  and  noblest  spirit,  and 
to  lift  it  above  a  skillful  knack  at  drilling  after  certain  me- 
chanical methods,  and  of  a  speedy  preparation  for  a  formal 
examination.  It  should  never  be  forgotten  that  the  direct 
instructions  of  the  college  in  the  classics  and  the  mathemat- 
ics, in  literature  and  science,  inevitably  become  the  forms 
to  which  their  pupils  will  conform  their  own  teachings. 

It  follows  from  all  that  has  been  suggested,  that  the 
position  of  the  teachers  of  our  preparatory  schools  should 
be  a  position  of  respectability  and  independence.  No 
class  of  men  do  more  for  the  republic  of  letters  than  those 
teachers  who  train  students  for  the  college  and  the  uni- 
versity. None  deserve  mor^  than  they  from  the  educated 
classes  of  the  community.  The  professional  and  the  cul- 
tivated men  of  the  country  owe  more  to  the  really  good 
teachers  who  trained  them  in  the  fitting  school,  than  to  any 
or  even  all  those  whom  they  have  met  at  any  later  stage 
of  their  education.  They  may  recognize  a  more  definite 
obligation  to  some  distinguished  professor  who  has  stimu- 
lated their  inquiries,  resolved  their  doubts,  or  widened 
their  field  of  thought  at  a  later  and  apparently  more 
critical  period  of  their  mental  history  ;  but  if  a  man  has 
been  so  happy  in  his  youth  as  to  enter  the  field  of  classical 
study  under  the  intelligent  and  friendly  guidance  of  a 
competent  and  wise  director,  who  taught  him  gently  yet 
firmly  to  meet  and  conquer  the  early  difficulties  of  his 
elementary  studies,  who  fixed  him  firmly  in  the  ways  of 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  309 

good  habits,  and  made  his  study  of  Greek  and  Latin  from 
the  first  an  aid  to  thought  and  culture  ;  if,  in  addition,  he 
found  in  such  a  teacher  a  loving  friend  as  well  as  a 
Christian  monitor,  he  will  remember  him  longer  and 
more  lovingly  than  any  who  have  followed,  however 
much  and  deservedly  they  may  be  honored.  Such  a 
teacher  many  pupils  love  to  honor,  as  often  as  they  hear 
or  think  of  the  late  Samuel  M.  Capron,  of  the  Hartford 
Grammar  and  High  School  ;  a  man  who  never  failed  to 
sympathize  with  as  well  as  to  stimulate  his  pupils  ;  who  had 
the  rare  gift  of  uniting  to  the  severest  drill-work  of  the 
new  grammar  the  most  generous  and  stimulating  of  in- 
tellectual excitements,  and  who  made  the  study  of  the 
classics  a  medium  for  every  species  of  incitement  and 
discipline.  There  are  not  a  few  like  him  now  living  who 
are  doing  more  efficient  work  for  the  higher  education 
of  the  country  than,  perhaps,  many  who  occupy  posts 
nominally  higher  in  dignity  and  honor. 

That  the  number  of  such  teachers  should  be  increased 
is  the  great  and  imperative  want  of  the  country.  We  have 
colleges  by  the  hundreds,  which  would  render  the  best 
possible  service  would  they  content  themselves  with  being 
secondary  schools  of  the  first  class,  instead  of  aiming  to 
be  what  so  many  never  can  be — successful  colleges.  We 
have  no  desire  that  any  college  should  be  overgrown,  or 
fail,  as  one  easily  may,  to  do  the  best  work,  by  an  exces- 
sive confidence  in  its  reputation  or  its  resources.  We 
concede  that  a  small  college  may,  in  many  respects,  do  as 
good  or  better  educational  work  than  a  large  university, 
but  yet  we  contend  that  many  of  our  so-called  universi- 
ties would  be  far  more  usefully  employed  were  they 
transformed  into  efficient  secondary  schools. 


3IO  PREPARATORY    SCHOOLS    FOR 

COLLEGIATE    SCHOOLS   REQUIRED. 

It  will  natuiall}^  be  inferred  that  one  of  the  most  im- 
perative wants  of  the  country  is  the  endowment  of  inde- 
pendent coUt'giate  institutions,  some  of  which  may  be 
similar  to  the  great  schools  of  England. 

Not  a  few  educational  men  look  to  the  public  high 
schools  to  prepare  students  for  college,  and  point  to  the 
example  of  the  schools  of  Michigan,  and  the  many  excel- 
lent high  schools  of  the  eastern  and  western  cities  as  the 
ideals  of  what  we  are  to  aim  at  and  hope  for,  as  fitting 
schools  for  the  colleges  and  universities.  We  are  not  re- 
quired to  think  or  speak  lightly  of  any  of  our  public  high 
schools  or  their  teachers  to  justify  the  opinion,  that  the 
friends  of  college  education  cannot  rely  permanently,  and 
certainly  not  universally,  upon  these  schools  as  training 
places  for  college  and  university  students.  Our  reasons 
for  this  opinion  are,  first,  -that  the  maintenance  of  supe- 
rior classical  and  scientific  instruction  by  the  popular 
will  and  at  the  public  expense  is  a  doubtful  experiment, 
the  success  of  which  in  a  few  communities  and  for  a  brief 
period,  furnishes  no  ground  for  concluding  that  it  will  be 
realized  in  the  majority  of  cases  or  for  any  considerable 
length  of  time.  Those  cities  and  villages  which  furnish  the 
best  classical  training  at  present  do  so  in  obedience  to  the 
enlightened  public  sentiment  of  their  communities,  such  as 
we  cannot  expect  will  everywhere  exist,  or  can  always  be 
steadily  and  permanently  maintained. 

Second,  if  the  colleges  depend  on  the  public  schools  to 
prepare  their  pupils,  the  managers  of  the  public  schools 
will  have  it  in  their  power  to  change  or  regulate  the 
courses  of  study  required  for  admission  to  the  colleges. 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  3II 

Should  the  board  of  public  education  in  any  State  or  city 
see  fit  to  make  no  provision  for  the  study  of  Greek,  or 
Geometry,  or  French,  or  German,  and  should  the  colleges 
have  relied  upon  the  pubHc  schools  to  train  their  students, 
.then  it  might  be  difficult,  if  not  impossible,  for  the  col- 
leges to  exact  Greek,  or  Geometry,  or  French,  or  German, 
or  any  more  of  either  than  the  managers  of  the  public 
schools  should  see  fit  to  allow.  That  this  is  no  imaginary 
case  is  proved  by  what  has  happened  in  Ohio.  In  many 
of  the  leading  high  schools  of  that  State  suitable  instruc- 
tion in  Greek  is  not  provided,  while  Latin  and  advanced 
Mathematics  are  well  taught,  and  in  consequence  the 
colleges  in  that  State  have  been  forced  to  agitate  the 
question  whether  it  were  not  practicable  and  wise  to  defer 
Greek  altogether  till  the  college  course  should  begin. 
Possibly  this  circumstance  may  have  emboldened  the 
adventurous  president  of  Harvard  College  to  moot  the 
question  whether  it  might  not  be  expedient  to  make  Greek 
elective,  even  in  the  preparatory  studies  for  a  so-called 
classical  curriculum.  In  the  present  uncertain  state  of 
pubHc  opinion  in  regard  to  classical  study,  it  will  not  be 
safe  for  the  friends  of  a  classical  curriculum  to  trust  its 
regulation  to  any  but  safe  hands. 

Third,  the  fortunes  of  our  public  school  system  are 
yet  uncertain,  because  the  system  has  not  in  all  respects 
been  fully  tested.  Whether  it  will  attempt  more  or  less 
than  it  has  done  already,  or  whether  it  can  successfully 
achieve  more  or  less,  is  as  yet  undecided.  The  friends 
of  colleges  and  universities  hold  no  uncertain  convictions 
in  respect  to  the  principles  on  which  they  build.  But, 
in  order  to  give  these  principles  effect,  they  must  make 
sure  of  well-appointed  training  schools. 


312  PREPARATORY  SCHOOLS  FOR 

Fourth,  there  is  ample  room  and  an  imperative  demand 
for  a  class  of  independent  collegiate  schools,  which  should 
rank  midway  between  the  colleges  and  many  of  the  best 
public  schools,  in  which  many  of  the  advantages  of  col- 
lege life  and  college  discipline  might  be  secured  by  special 
literary  culture,  by  the  study  of  the  modern  languages, 
and  of  advanced  mathematics  and  physics,  which  shall  be 
taught  by  able  specialists  or  professors,  under  a  fixed  sys- 
tem, with  a  regular  curriculum.  Such  institutions,  whether 
they  are  endowed  by  an  individual  or  a  community,  or 
are  built  up  by  individual  enterprise,  are  required  every- 
where throughout  our  country,  and  it  is  to  the  endow- 
ment of  many  such  institutions  that  the  public  attention 
should  be  directed,  and  the  liberaHty  of  the  rich  should 
be  invoked.  As  has  been  already  suggested,  could 
scores  of  the  colleges  of  the  country  be  content  to  use 
their  endowments,  apparatus  and  buildings  in  this  most 
excellent  service  there  would  be  a  saving  of  the  pub- 
lic wealth,  and  no  inconsiderable  accession  to  the  ap- 
pliances for  the  higher  education  of  the  country. 

Not  a  few  friends  of  education  have  urged  that  these 
higher  schools  should  be  affiliated  to  the  colleges  ;  each 
institution  giving  to  and  receiving  patronage  from  the 
other ;  that  each  college  should  gather  about  itself  its 
special  satellites,  and  hold  itself  responsible,  in  a  certain 
sense,  for  the  school  from  which  it  receives  special  favors. 
We  cannot  regard  such  an  arrangement  as  either  practi- 
cable or  desirable.  It  is  not  practicable,  because  the 
patrons  of  no  large  school  of  such  a  description  will  be 
willing  to  pledge  themselves  to  a  particular  college.  The 
attempt  to  manage  a  school  in  the  interest  of,  or  with  ref- 
erence to,  a  single   higher  institution,   is  foreign  to  the 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  313 

free  and  independent  spirit  of  our  people.  It  is  not  de- 
sirable, for  the  reason  that  the  preparatory  school  which 
limits  its  associations  to  a  single  college  must  necessarily 
be  restricted  in  its  views  and  provincial  by  its  narrow- 
ness. Whatever  advantages  it  might  expect  or  receive 
from  the  counsel  and  aid  of  the  instructors  and  friends  of 
its  patron  college  or  university  would  be  more  than  coun- 
terbalanced by  a  sense  of  limitation  and  bondage.  It  is 
better,  on  the  whole,  for  both  the  preparatory  schools  and 
the  colleges,  that  the  pupils  who  are  trained  together  in 
the  first  should  be  distributed  among  the  higher  institu- 
tions, and  be  stimulated  by  their  remembrances  of  one 
another  at  school  to  make  the  most  and  best  of  whatever 
they  shall  have  gained  or  lost  at  parting.  The  colleges 
would  also  be  the  gainers,  by  bringing  together  a  greater 
variety  of  men  with  a  somewhat  different  training,  to  help 
or  vie  with  one  another  in  freshly-opened  arenas.  In 
this  way  both  colleges  and  schools  would  prepare  their 
pupils  for  our  liberal  and  varied  American  life. 
14 


II. 

THE  CLASS  SYSTEM  IN  COLLEGES. 

(Read  before   the  National  Educational  Association  at  Louisville,   Ky., 
August  14,  1877. j 


By  the  Class  System  as  contrasted  with  the  Elective 
System,  is  meant  a  fixed  curriculum,  as  distinguished  from 
a  course  of  optional  studies.  I  cannot  suppose  that  any 
educator  would  object  to  the  instruction  of  classes,  as 
contrasted  with  individuals,  in  either  school,  or  college, 
or  university.  As  we  can  neither  understand  nature  nor 
control  nature  till  we  classify  individual  objects,  so  we 
can  neither  understand  man  nor  train  man  till  we  avail 
ourselves  of  the  common  likenesses  and  sympathies  by 
which  man  instructs  and  stimulates  his  fellow-man.  Sci- 
ence is  impossible  till  classification  begins ;  and  education, 
whether  in  the  family,  the  kindergarten,  or  the  school, 
begins  only  when  like  is  brought  to  its  like  through  the 
instructive  guidance  of  parent  or  teacher,  and  the  quick- 
ening excitements  of  children  of  nearly  equal  attainments. 
From  the  half  articulate  lispings  and  the  expressive  ges- 
tures of  two  infants  whom  chance  brings  together  for  an 
hour,  to  the  exciting  encounters  of  two  intellectual  giants 
like  Samuel  Johnson  and  Edmund  Burke,  or  Ben 
JoNSON  and  William  Shakspeare,  man  is  continually 
educating  his  fellow-man  ;  like  with  like. 

These  thoughts  may  seem  to  be  irrelevant  common- 


31 6  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEOTES. 

places.  I  introduce  them  because  not  a  few  theorists  in 
education  seem  in  a  measure  to  have  lost  sight  of  the 
important  truth  that  education  is  necessarily  social  by 
reason  of  the  reiteration  of  the  truth  that  individual  tastes 
and  adaptations  should  be  chiefly  regarded  in  our  educa- 
tional arrangements.  We  ought  never  to  forget  that  if 
men  are  to  be  educated  they  must  in  some  sense  come 
into  communication  with  their  kind,  and  share  in  a  com- 
mon yet  pecuhar  intellectual  and  moral  life. 

I  do  not  deny,  nor  would  I  depreciate  the  importance 
of  what  is  called  Self-Education.  I  should  be  one  of  the 
last  to  undervalue  the  truth  that  skill  and  success  in  a 
teacher  are  tested  by  his  sagacious  insight  into  the  indi- 
vidual peculiarities  of  his  pupils  and  his  masterly  control 
over  them.  But  I  cannot  forget  that  in  order  to  either  he 
must  bring  them  under  the  influence  of  the  common  life 
of  their  kind — and  that  unless  he  can  do  this  education  is 
impossible.  Even  when  a  single  child  is  given  over  to 
the  undivided  influence  of  a  single  teacher,  it  is  only  as  he 
brings  his  pupil  into  active  sympathy  with  other  minds — 
through  books  and  an  actual  or  imagined  community  of 
fellow-beings — that  he  begins  to  educate  him,  or  that  edu- 
cation becomes  possible. 

It  will  be  scarcely  questioned  that  in  public  institutions 
of  education,  considerations  of  economy  require  that 
pupils  of  equal  capacities  and  attainments  should  be 
taught  in  classes.  In  the  wayside  school  the  first  advance 
is  made  from  chaos  to  kosmos,  when  the  children,  instead 
of  saying  their  lessons  alone,  are  gathered  into  groups.  It 
is  now  universally  conceded  that  in  this  way  they  can  be 
more  effectually  taught  and  excited  by  their  teacher,  and 
at  the  same  time  instruct  and  inspire  one  another.     The 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  317 

establishment  of  graded  schools  of  all  kinds,  from  the 
primary  to  the  High  School,  is  acknowledged  as  essential 
to  the  efficiency  and  success  of  any  system  of  PubUc 
Schools.  Hence  comes  a  fixed  curriculum,  notwithstanding 
its  disadvantages — as  of  large  classes,  excessive  and  weari- 
some routine,  and  the  failure  of  the  highest  conceivable 
adaptation  to  the  diverse  capacities,  tastes,  and  attain- 
ments of  individual  pupils. 

What  is  true  of  public  schools  is  true  of  all  those 
Schools  or  Seminaries  which  prepare  for  college  or  busi- 
ness life.  It  is  acknowledged  universally  that  certain 
studies  are  essential  to  the  education  required,  and  these 
studies  should  be  insisted  on  by  common  consent.  The 
curriculum  varies  somewhat  with  the  circumstances  of 
individual  pupils  and  the  cultivation  of  the  community. 
More  or  fewer  studies  are  taken  up  into  it,  but  as  fast  as 
society  becomes  organized  certain  studies  are  insisted 
on  as  absolutely  necessary.  These  constitute  the  fixed 
curriculum,  and  are  taught  to  classes  at  assigned  periods 
of  time,  with  regular  examinations. 

The  same  method  is  followed  in  our  Schools  of  Law, 
Medicine,  Theology,  Science,  and  Technology.  All  the 
so-called  Professional  schools  and  the  majority  of  our 
Schools  of  Science  and  the  Arts,  recognize  very  dis- 
tinctly the  truth,  that  certain  studies  are  essential  to  the 
successful  profession  or  practice  of  the  Science  or  Art 
for  which  the  school  is  a  preparation.  In  many  cases 
the  State  steps  in  to  guard  the  door  of  the  profession  or 
guild.  In  every  case  the  community  not  only  consents 
but  demands  that  fixed  courses  of  studies  should  be  pre- 
scribed, covering  definite  periods  of  time.  Most  of  these 
studies  are  appropriate  to  the  University,  so  far  as  the 


3l8  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

university  is  distinguished  from  the  college,  and  yet  the 
sentiment  is  gaining,  if  possible,  a  firmer  hold  of  the  pub- 
lic, that  in  schools  of  this  kind  the  class  system  with  a 
fixed  curriculum  should  be  rigidly  enforced.  Those 
schools,  which  under  any  specious  pretence  shorten  the 
time  of  study,  or  abandon  the  classification  of  their  pu- 
pils, are  visited  with  severe  and  well-merited  criticism. 
Harvard  University  has  recently  made  itself  conspicuous 
and  honorable  by  introducing  into  its  School  of  Medicine 
several  new  features,  every  one  of  which  is  a  reinforcement 
of  the  class  system  and  fixed  curriculum,  which  it  has 
seemed  to  repudiate,  if  not  to  abandon,  in  the  Academ- 
ical Department.  The  weight  of  opinion  seems  to  be 
more  and  more  fixed,  and  more  and  more  distinctly  ex- 
pressed, in  favor  of  a  complete  and  definite  preparation 
for  every  department  of  public  activity  by  a  course  of 
prescribed  study  extending  through  a  definite  term  of 
time.  I  do  not  forget  that  very  many  persons  in  our 
country  have  become  not  only  eminent,  but  pre-eminent 
in  every  one  of  the  professions — as  also  in  every  sphere 
of  civil  and  military  service,  without  a  technically  pro- 
fessional training ;  but  I  cannot  be  mistaken  when  I  as- 
sert that  the  more  eminent  such  persons  have  become, 
the  higher  is  their  appreciation  of  the  importance  of  such 
a  training.  Nor  can  I  be  mistaken  in  asserting  that  as 
our  civilization  becomes  more  advanced,  the  more  rigor- 
ously will  the  requirement  be  enforced,  that  no  man  shall 
be  entrusted  with  the  responsibilities  of  public  service, 
who  cannot  give  proof  that  he  has  made  those  studies 
and  undergone  that  discipline  which  are  formally  ex- 
pressed in  a  fixed  curriculum  prescribed  for  a  definite 
period. 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  319 

It  would  be  silly  and  pedantic  to  contend  that  no  man 
shall  be  admitted  to  the  responsible  posts  of  professional 
or  public  service  who  cannot  produce  his  diploma  from 
the  High  School  or  the  College,  the  School  of  Science 
or  of  Art — although  it  is  not  impertinent  to  notice  that 
such  a  requisition  or  its  equivalent  has  within  the  last  two 
generations  lifted  Prussia  from  the  meanest  to  the  proud- 
est position  on  the  Continent  of  F.urope.  But  I  would 
insist,  as  all  would  concede,  that  if  we  are  to  maintain  a 
high  standard  of  special  or  professional  culture  in  this 
country,  our  special  schools  of  training  must  prescribe  a 
fixed  curriculum  of  study  and  appoint  a  definite  period 
of  time  for  its  prosecution. 

If  these  views  are  just,  they  will  have  prepared  us  to 
understand  and  rightly  to  determine  the  question  before 
us.  We  assume  that  no  one  will  question,  for  the  rea- 
sons already  given,  that  the  class  system  and  the  fixed 
curriculum  are  essential  to  the  best  working  of  profes- 
sional schools,  on  the  one  hand,  and  of  public  and  aca- 
demical schools,  on  the  other.  The  question  before  us 
is,  whethej'  a  similar  sy stein  should  be  applied  i?i  a  course 
of  college  or  university  training.  This  question  in  our 
view  is  nearly  identical  with  the  question  whether  such  a 
course  of  training  shall  be  retained  in  our  country.  I 
would  urge  that  unless  such  a  course  of  study  and  disci- 
pline shall  be  made  permanent  and  honorable  by  a  fixed 
curriculum  and  a  prescribed  term  of  years,  it  will  inevita- 
bly cease  to  have  a  recognized  position  in  our  educational 
system.  Unless  the  class  system  can  be  retained,  no 
place  will  be  reserved  in  our  country  for  that  higher 
general  culture,  which  has  hitherto  been  assigned  to  our 
Colleges  and  Universities,  intermediate  between  the  High 


320  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

School  and  the  Academy  on  the  one  side,  and  the  Pro- 
fessional or  Technical  School  on  the  other.  That  the 
introduction  of  the  elective  system  into  the  colleges  tends 
to  this  result  is  manifest  from  most  of  the  arguments  that 
are  used  in  favor  of  this  system — such  as  that  the  student 
has  thereby  the  opportunity  of  selecting  those  studies 
which  will  be  of  the  greatest  service  in  his  future  life ;  or 
for  which  he  feels  the  strongest  interest,  or  towards  which 
he  has  a  prevailing  inclination.  All  tliese  arguments  im- 
ply that  the  value  of  the  college  course  depends  chiefly 
on  its  relation  to  the  special  line  of  life  which  the  student 
expects  to  pursue. 

We  contend  that  education  of  every  kind,  whether 
general  or  special,  has  a  higher  aim  than  to  qualify  a 
man  for  any  sphere  of  practical  or  professional  life  ;  and 
that  aim  is  the  culture  of  the  man  who  is  to  practice  the 
art  or  fill  the  profession.  The  wider  is  his  culture  and 
the  more  liberal  his  training,  if  other  things  are  equal, 
the  more  complete  will  be  his  fitness  for  his  special  oc- 
cupation, provided  he  superadds  to  this  general  culture 
the  requisite  professional  knowledge  and  skill.  It  fol- 
lows that  as  the  elementary  education  of  the  Academy 
or  Public  School  introduces  the  pupil  to  that  knowledge 
of  language,  and  man,  of  nature  and  her  laws,  which  is 
deemed  requisite. for  his  individual  and  social  life,  there 
is  ample  room  and  imperative  need  for  an  enlargement  of 
this  general  knowledge  of  language,  of  science  pure  and 
applied,  of  literature  and  history,  for  all  who  are  to  be 
leaders  and  guides  of  their  fellow-men,  in  the  special 
spheres  of  public  and  professional  life.  We  also  contend 
that  this  higher  college  and  university  training  should  be 
prosecuted,  whenever  it  is  practicable,  before  the  student 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  32 1 

enters  upon  his  appropriately  professional  studies.  It  is 
true  that  all  study,  whether  general  or  special,  is  more 
or  less  disciplinary.  It  is  true  that  a  professional  and 
technological  curriculum  involves  culture,  but  it  is  also 
true  that  every  description  of  special  training  requires 
for  its  best  effect  that  enlargement  of  elementary  knowl- 
edge which  is  furnished  by  the  studies  usually  assigned 
to  the  college  or  university.  Whatever  studies  of  this 
sort  are  rightly  conceived  to  be  necessary,  should  be  pre- 
scribed as  a  fixed  curriculum.  But  such  a  curriculum 
implies  that  those  only  can  enter  upon  it  with  advantage 
who  are  prepared  by  previous  study.  This  implies  an 
entrance  examination  or  its  equivalent.  For  the  reasons 
already  given,  if  students  are  equally  well  qualified,  in- 
struction and  training  can  be  imparted  with  greater  effi- 
ciency and  profit  if  they  are  gathered  into  classes.  It 
were  unreasonable  to  expect  that  the  members  of  any 
one  class  should  be  equally  gifted,  or  equally  industrious, 
or  equally  enthusiastic,  or  equally  well  trained.  If  the 
classes  are  large  and  there  are  striking  inequalities  of 
capacity  or  industry  in  their  members,  the  classes  may 
be  subdivided  and  the  instruction  and  tasks  adapted  to 
the  capacities  of  the  members  of  these  divisions.  Extra 
studies,  or  studies  for  special  honors,  may  be  superadded, 
and  still  a-n  average  amount  of  diligence  and  success 
may  be  made  the  condition  of  an  honorable  testimonial, 
before  the  student  proceeds  to  the  professional  or  techno- 
logical school,  or  to  higher  attainments  in  some  specialty 
of  general  learning. 

The  theory  of  higher  education,  Avhich  has  been  briefly 
sketched,  has  been  generally  accepted  since  the  revival 
of  learning,  and  has  shaped  the  constitution  and  adminis- 
14'" 


322  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

tration  of  our  colleges  and  universities  with  their  classes, 
their  curricula,  their  examinations,  and  their  degrees.  A 
brief  sketch  of  these  institutions  may  give  us  a  clearer 
conception  of  the  appropriate  place  and  proper  functions 
of  the  class  system  and  curriculum  in  the  American  col- 
lege and  university.  The  German  and  French  Universi- 
ties are  what  we  should  call  professional  schools,  with  the 
addition  of  schools  of  Philology,  Physics,  Metaphysics, 
and  Mathematics.  But  all  of  these  schools  look  toward 
the  degrees  of  Medicine,  Law,  Theology,  Philosophy,  or 
to  some  testimonial  upon  examination  which  shall  admit 
to  an  honorable  place  in  public  life.  These  degrees  and 
testimonials  not  only  presuppose  a  successful  examina- 
tion, but  a  fixed  curriculum,  usually  of  lectures,  extending 
over  a  prescribed  number  of  terms.  They  also  presup- 
pose a  rigorous  course  of  enforced  study  at  the  Gymna- 
sium, or  College,  or  Tycee,  which  is  analogous  to  that 
prescribed  in  the  Americaji  college,  with  this  difference, 
that  the  latter  in  the  last  year  proposes  studies  and  gives 
instruction  which  in  France  and  Germany  are  assigned 
to  the  University.  The  English  University  prescribes  a 
curriculum  and  residence  as  the  conditions  for  its  de- 
grees, with  admission  to  special  honors  and  rewards  on 
passing  rigid  competitive  examinations  in  a  very  limited 
number  of  special  departments.  These  studies  and  ex- 
aminations are  mostly,  we  may  say  wholly,  in  the  line  of 
general  as  contrasted  with  professional  culture.  The 
Scottish  Universities  are  the  most  consistent  adherents  of 
the  elective  system  which  is  so  strongly  recommended  in 
this  country,  and  has  been  introduced  in  part  into  a  few 
American  colleges.  These  universities  give  but  few  de- 
grees.    The  curriculum  of  general  culture  so  far  as  it  is 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  323 

fixed,  is  determined  by  requirements  and  a  sentiment 
which  is  outside  of  the  university,  and  is  created  and  en- 
forced by  ecclesiastical  bodies  and  professional  guilds, 
etc.,  etc.  The  American  college  was  originally  modeled 
after  the  college  of  the  English  University,  but  has  un- 
dergone many  changes  in  accordance  with  the  peculiari- 
ties of  American  life  and  the  rapid  developments  of  mod- 
ern science  and  modern  learning.  Most,  if  not  all  of 
these  changes  have  been  suggested  and  confirmed  by  ex- 
periment, and  have  been  safely  incorporated  into  the  origi- 
nal structure  by  natural  assimilation  and  growth.  The 
earliest  important  deviation  from  the  typical  American 
College  was  made  by  the  organization  of  the  University 
of  Virginia,  which,  whether  designedly  or  not,  approached 
more  nearly  in  its  constitution  and  workings  to  the  Scottish 
University  than  to  any  other  model.  It  allows  the  student 
to  elect  as  many  or  as  few  branches  of  study  as  he  chooses 
— arranging  them  in  courses  for  his  convenience,  but  leav- 
ing it  for  him  to  select  those  which  he  will  pursue.  For  its 
degrees  it  prescribes  a  severe  curriculum,  which  it  en- 
forces by  a  rigid  examination,  but  as  these  degrees  are 
designed  to  mark  rare  and  extraordinary  attainments,  the 
majority  of  the  students  have  liltle  care  for  them,  and  the 
public  little  interest  in  them.  This  being  the  case,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  its  degrees  in  Arts  or  in  the  several  Pro- 
fessional schools  are  rarely  sought  for.  The  certificates 
or  testimonials  which  the  majority  of  students  receive  in 
their  place  must  necessarily  be  so  varied  in  their  signifi- 
cation as  to  have  little  importance,  even  with  the  limited 
public  of  educated  men. 

More  recently  in  the  University  of  Michigan  and  the 
Cornell  University,  elective  courses  of  study  have  been 


324  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

introduced,  running  through  several  terms,  of  which  the 
several  branches  are  arranged  in  a  certain  order  of  prog- 
ress and  relationship,  and  each  leads  to  a  special  de- 
gree. The  old  class  system  has  not  been  abandoned — 
nor  the  fixed  curriculum  except  so  far  as  special  students 
are  admitted  freely  to  study  any  high  branch  of  knowl- 
edge which  he  is  judged  capable  of  pursuing  with  advan- 
tage. Inasmuch,  however,  as  these  various  courses  and 
their  degrees  require  residence  for  a  varying  period  of 
time,  and  the  number  of  occasional  students  is  large,  the 
integrity  of  the  classes  must  be  more  or  less  weakened, 
and  the  culture  and  stimulus  which  proceed  from  a  com- 
mon life  in  liberal  studies  must  be  far  less  marked  and 
positive.  In  Harvard  College  residence  for  four  years  is 
required,  with  now  and  then  a  possible  exception.  A 
single  degree  is  proposed  in  the  college  proper.  A  fixed 
curriculum  for  the  candidates  for  this  degree  is,  however, 
abandoned  after  the  end  of  the  first  year.  After  the 
Freshman  year  a  multitude  of  elective  studies  (not 
courses)  is  proposed,  a  certain  number  of  hours  in  which 
must  be  taken  in  order  to  admission  to  the  first  degree 
in  Arts.  In  many,  if  not  all,  of  the  colleges  there  is  an 
increasing  partiality  for  elective  studies  on  the  part  of 
professors  and  students  for  reasons  not  discreditable  to 
either.  There  is  also  a  popular  desire  for  such  studies,  on 
the  part  of  students  who  are  impatient  of  the  severit}''  of 
any  study  which  is  imposed  and  of  the  value  of  which 
they  can  know  but  little.  The  changes  in  the  direc- 
tion of  election  are  so  many,  and  the  tendency  to  other 
changes  is  so  decided,  that  the  inquiry  is  becoming  seri- 
ous and  practical,  whether  any  curriculum  of  studies  is  to 
have  any  significance,  even  when  it  seems  to  be  retained, 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  325 

provided  a  greater  diversity  of  studies  shall  admit  to  a  de- 
gree in  Arts,  or  provided  the  number  of  degrees  shall  be 
so  largely  increased  as  to  outgrow  the  capacity  even  of 
the  educated  public  to  interpret  the  significance  of  the 
letters  by  which  the  degree  is  symbolized.  In  other 
words,  it  is  a  question  whether  the  colleges  of  the  coun- 
try, in  aiming  to  become  universities,  will  not  in  fact  be- 
come professional  and  technical  schools,  and  whether  a 
curriculum  of  general  and  generous  culture  shall  have 
any  place  in  our  educational  arrangements  except  in  the 
High  School  and  Academy.  Viewed  in  this  aspect  our 
discussion  of  the  claims  and  advantages  of  the  class,  as 
compared  with  the  elective  system,  becomes  important. 

The  writer  holds  that  it  is  vitally  important  to  the  cul- 
ture of  this  country,  he  would  almost  say  to  the  existence 
of  this  country  as  a  country,  that  the  American  college, 
with  its  class  system,  its  fixed  curriculum,  its  generous  and 
earnest  common  life,  and  its  enforced  discipline,  should 
be  retained  and  re-enforced,  and  for  the  following 
reasons  : 

(i.)  It  is  important  that  the  ideal  of  what  constitutes  a 
generous  education  should  be  distinctly  defined  and  thus 
be  made  familiar  to  the  public  mind,  and  be  suitably  hon- 
ored in  order  that  the  civilization  of  the  country  may  be 
sustained  and  advanced.  There  is  no  method  by  which 
these  results  can  be  attained  so  effectually  as  for  the  in- 
stitutions of  higher  education  to  require  certain  studies  in 
a  fixed  curriculum.  If  nothing  else  is  accomplished  one 
end  is  certainly  secured,  and  that  is  the  assertion  for 
these  studies,  the  place  of  honor  which  they  deserve.  If 
the  colleges  do  nothing  more  by  this  arrangement,  they 
testify  to  the  importance  that  every  educated  man  should 


326  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

have  some  acquaintance  with  the  ancient  languages  and 
with  ancient  hfe,  with  modern  languages  and  modern  his- 
tory, and  with  the  sciences  of  nature  and  of  man  which  are 
working  such  changes  in  modern  civilization  and  modern 
speculation.  We  believe  it  to  be  true  that  with  good 
apphances,  and  under  favoring  circumstances,  this  cycle 
of  studies  can  be  mastered  with  reasonable  success  by  any 
studious  and  earnest  youth  of  ordinary  endowments,  with 
ordinary  industry,  and  that  it  is  well  for  the  community 
to  accept  the  conclusion  that  every  young  man  who  as- 
pires to  the  highest  positions  in  society  should  master 
this  curriculum  at  whatever  sacrifice  of  disinclination  or 
labor.  The  colleges  have  no  right  to  indulge  the  whims 
or  fancies  or  the  indolence  of  the  young  men  of  a  coun- 
try like  ours,  nor  to  pander  to  the  prejudices  of  those  half- 
educated  and  conceited  specialists  who  are  tempted  to 
despise  or  depreciate  those  branches  of  knowledge  of 
which  they  are  ignorant.  , 

It  is  urged  indeed  by  the  advocates  of  elective  studies 
that  we  exalt  the  curriculum  of  generous  studies  to  still 
higher  honor  when  we  give  the  opportunity  for-  eminent 
attainments  in  special  branches — as  in  the  classics  or  the 
mathematics  or  the  physical  and  moral  sciences — by  con- 
centrating the  energies  and  kindling  the  enthusiasm  of  a 
few  pupils  in  a  single  direction.  To  this  we  reply,  that 
so  far  as  the  community  is  concerned,  the  colleges  which 
adopt  the  elective  system  declare  that  it  is  not  necessary 
that  the  generously-educated  man  should  know  something 
of  all  these  studies  in  order  to  take  his  place  among  the 
leaders  of  men.  On  the  contrary,  they  assert  that  it  is  as 
well  or  better  that  he  should  master  some  few  of  them  ; 
even  if  he  is  wholly,  or  almost  wholly,  ignorant  of  the  rest. 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  327 

This  class  of  educators  say  in  effect  that  a  mastery  of 
Greek  and  Latin  or  Philology  is  wisely  purchased  at  the 
cost  of  entire  ignorance  of  modern  Physics  and  Physi- 
ology, with  then-  wide- reaching  appHcations  to  every  form 
of  human  belief  and  every  species  of  human  institutions. 
They  insist  that  a  student  who  is  to  devote  himself  to 
history  or  political  science  may  wisely  select  from  the  cur- 
riculum those  studies  which  bear  most  directly  upon  his 
subsequent  life — overlooking  the  fact  that  not  a  few  of 
the  studies  which  seem  useless  may  prove  to  be  most  im- 
portant, and  that  of  these  he  must  be  totally  ignorant, 
unless  he  masters  their  elements  in  his  youth. 

We  repeat  the  assertion  that  the  colleges  do  a  great, 
though  it  be  an  undesired  service  to  the  community  by 
holding  its  youth  to  the  necessity  of  a  fixed  curriculum 
as  the  condition  of  entering  into  the  honorable  rank  of 
generously-educated  men.  They  cannot  render  this  ser- 
vice by  providing  for  instruction  in  this  round  of  studies 
while  they  are  elective,  because  they  thereby  testify  that 
eminent  attainments  in  a  few  branches  are  equally  if  not 
more  valuable  than  a  general  acquaintance  with  all. 

To  this  it  is  replied,  that  the  university  does  by  no 
means  abandon  the  theory  of  a  generous  education  by 
making  its  studies  largely  elective,  if  it  requires  that  the 
elements  of  certain  branches  of  science  and  learning 
should  be  learned  at  the  High  or  Preparatory  school. 
Its  advocates  urge  as  a  reason  for  the  elective  system, 
that  if  the  fixed  curriculum  is  extended  through  the  uni- 
versity, the  attainments  in  each  of  its  branches  must  neces- 
sarily be  meagre.  They  assert  that  under  the  enforced 
system,  whether  it  be  of  classics,  mathematics,  or  any  of  the 
sciences — with  all  the  time  and  force  of  both  preparatory 


328  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

school  and  college,  nothing  beyond  a  smattering  of  results 
is  achieved.  They  force  us  to  conclude  that  all  which 
the  pupil  needs  to  know,  say  of  Greek  or  Astronomy  or 
Chemistry  or  Physiology,  is  the  smattering  of  the  prepara- 
tory school.  They  assume,  moreover,  that  as  soon  as  the 
magic  influence  of  the  opportunity  to  elect  one's  studies 
begins  to  act,  every  student  will  be  inspired  with  enthu- 
siasm, will  be  animated  to  industry,  and  will  move  for- 
ward to  eminent  success. 

(2.)  The  class  system  has  the  important  advantage  of 
uniting  the  students  in  those  common  sympathies  and 
that  common  life  which  grow  out  of  common  interests 
and  common  pursuits.  We  assume  that  it  is  of  the 
greatest  service  that  the  men  of  culture  and  education  in 
any  country,  pre-eminently  in  a  country  like  ours,  should 
have  common  convictions  and  common  sympathies. 
Common  convictions  must  have  as  their  basis  common 
studies.  Common  sympathies  must  grow  out  of  con- 
genial tastes.  Unless  the  men  of  highest  education  have 
common  thoughts  and  common  sympathies  among  them- 
selves, they  can  neither  form  a  community  of  their  own 
nor  exert  a  strong  and  united  influence  upon  the  com- 
munity without.  Unless  the  students  of  our  schools  of 
liberal  learning  are  held  together  in  the  same  class  by  a 
curriculum  of  common  studies,  they  will  be  divided  into 
separate  cliques  or  factions.  If  the  devotees  of  science 
and  culture  desire  and  expect  to  exert  that  influence  in 
the  commonwealth  which  it  is  their  duty  and  privilege 
to  employ,  they  must  be  united  by  common  bonds  of 
thought  and  feeling.  The  culture  which  they  represent 
must  be  expressed  by  a  definite  curriculum  in  which  each 
one  has  had  a  personal  share  and  from  which  each  has 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  329 

derived  a  conscious  advantage  ;  in  which  every  one  has 
enlightened  faith  and  for  which  he  feels  an  intelligent  and 
fervent  gratitude.  It  is  not  alone  for  his  successes  and 
acquisitions  that  the  student  of  the  American  college  is 
grateful.  Even  his  failures  and  his  neglects  continue  to 
instruct  and  warn  him  in  all  his  subsequent  Hfe.  Viewed 
in  this  aspect,  the  common  studies  and  common  pursuits 
— the  achievements  and  failures — the  sympathies  and 
the  antipathies  attendant  upon  the  class  system,  consti- 
tute a  very  important  part  of  the  general  and  the  generous 
education  of  the  college  life.  The  college  itself  becomes 
by  these  characteristics  an  important  bond  of  union  and 
source  of  inspiration  to  the  entire  community. 

If  on  the  other  hand  the  college  or  university  is  only 
the  common  dwelling-place  of  many  separate  sets  or 
cliques,  each  shut  up  for  the  time  to  its  special  studies, 
its  selected  instructors  and  its  limited  spheres  of  instruc- 
tion and  inspiration, — if  even  these  cliques  are  constantly 
disintegrated  and  reconstituted,  largely  of  new  materials, 
the  chances  are  that  the  opportunities  for  intellectual 
and  personal  intercourse  will  be  limited  to  brief  periods 
and  shut  up  within  narrow  bounds  ;  or  if  social  relations 
occasionally  shall  stretch  across  the  boundary  lines  drawn 
by  special  and  favorite  studies,  they  will  be  such  as  are 
cemented  by  few  common  intellectual  activities  and 
tastes. 

It  is  otherwise  when  a  college  class  is  gathered  at  the 
beginning  of  four  years  to  pursue  for  four  successive 
years  substantially  the  same  curriculum.  During  this 
period,  the  most  exciting  and  plastic  period  of  life,  its 
members  are  brought  into  contact  with  each  other,  and 
as  their  capacities  are  tested  their  growth  is  observed — 


330  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

their  characters  are  manifested,  and,  it  may  be,  are 
changed  for  the  better  or  the  worse.  They  seem  at 
times  to  learn  as  much  from  one  another,  whether  in  suc- 
cess or  faiUire,  as  they  learn  from  their  text-books  and 
their  instructors.  It  is  universally  confessed  that  the 
opportunities  of  studying  one  another  under  these  varied 
experiences  prepare  them  eminently  for  the  knowledge 
of  their  fellow-men  in  subsequent  life. 

It  is  not  to  be  denied  that  certain  disadvantages  are 
incidental  to  the  class  system  and  the  enforced  curricu- 
lum. There  is  more  exposure  to  wearisome  routine — 
there  is  less  opportunity  of  taking  advantage  of  decided 
tastes  or  preferences  in  individuals  and  of  making  extra- 
ordinary acquisitions  in  special  lines  of  study.  These 
advantages,  however,  are  dearly  purchased  at  the  cost 
of  the  certain  evils  which  attend  the  elective  system  in 
fostering  capricious  self-indulgence,  unreasonable  and 
ignorant  tastes,  and  in  opening  the  way  to  systematic  in- 
dolence. Compulsion  is  an  odious  term  ;  but  the  best 
things  come  to  men  through  the  force  of  necessity, 
which  compels  them  to  do  what  they  are  disinclined  to, 
and  often  through  the  judgment  of  those  who  are  older 
and  more  experienced  than  themselves.  We  offer  no 
apology  for  teaching  which  is  mechanical  and  perfunc- 
tory. We  are  well  aware  that  it  is  never  pleasant  to 
press  men  to  study  what  they  do  not  believe  in  or  do  not 
like,  but  we  have  yet  to  learn  that  under  an  elective  sys- 
tem indolence  and  neglect  and  superficial  work  are  un- 
known. We  have  abundant  evidence  that  under  the 
Class  System  those  who  do  the  best  work  are  the  most 
eager  for  special  improvement,  and  those  who  stand  high- 
est for  general  excellence  are  most  eager  to  perform  ex- 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  33 1 

tra  and  elective  work.  Whatever  advantage  attends 
elective  studies  may  be  attained  by  giving  such  studies  a 
limited  place  in  the  regular  curriculum.  By  such  an 
arrangement  all  the  desired  variety  can  be  secured, 
individual  tastes  may  be  gratified,  and  the  satisfaction  of 
mastering  some  special  field  of  study  may  be  enjoyed. 

The  doctrine  has  been  confidently  asserted  that  the 
distinctive  feature  of  the  University  as  contrasted  with  the 
college  is,  that  it  allows  of  a  free  election  of  branches  and 
courses  of  studies,  of  subjects,  and  of  teachers.  This  may 
be  accepted  as  true,  if  the  University  is  viewed  only  as  a 
teaching  body,  not  a  body  which  also  confers  honors  and 
degrees.  The  German  Universities  give  but  few  degrees, 
but  the  State  and  the  Church  admit  to  offices  and  posi- 
tions only  after  severe  and  often-repeated  examinations. 
The  preparation  for  these  examinations  is  to  a  certain 
extent  left  to  the  option  of  the  student  so  far  as  places, 
teachers,  and  studies  are  concerned.  And  yet  under  the 
German  system  the  pupil  must  bring  to  the  examining 
tribunal  satisfactory  testimonials  of  faithful  attendance 
for  a  prescribed  number  of  terms,  with  a  sufficient  num- 
ber of  Professors,  before  he  is  permitted  to  show  what 
he  knows.  In  Scotland  the  same  is  true.  In  Germany 
the  academical  freedom  of  both  teachers  and  pupils,  for 
which  so  many  American  contend  as  the  condition  of 
University  enthusiasm  and  dignity,  is  supplemented  by  the 
constant  watchfulness  and  the  rigorous  discipline  of  a 
military  bureaucracy.  Whatever  may  be  urged  of  the 
advantages  of  the  German  freedom  on  the  one  side,  and 
whatever  may  be  true  of  a  small  number  of  students, 
should  be  largely  supplemented  by  what  is  known  to 
be  true  of  the  reckless  waste  of  time  and  opportunities 


332  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

into  which  so  many  students  are  betrayed,  especially  in 
the  earlier  years  of  university  life.  In  this  country 
there  is  as  yet  nothing  at  all  analogous  to  the  severe 
examinations  of  Germany  and  Scotland.  The  doors  of 
the  professions  are  practically  open  to  all  who  choose 
to  enter  them.  It  can  hardly  be  expected  that  a  Uni- 
versity which  makes  its  studies  to  be  largely  elective  and 
attendance  to  be  optional,-  and  which  must  necessarily 
allow  examinations  to  be  infrequent,  should,  however  fair 
its  promises  and  upright  its  intentions,  bring  a  pressure 
upon  its  pupils  through  its  examinations  which  shall  be 
strong  and  steady  enough  to  counterbalance  the  mani- 
fold temptations  to  abuse  which  must  attend  the  freedom 
of  its  academic  life. 

Some  of  the  reasons  which  are  urged  in  favor  of  the 
election  of  studies  according  to  the  tastes  and  prospective 
occupations  of  life  seem  to  be  arguments  for  the  very 
opposite  method.  The  ,very  fact  that  a  young  man  has 
a  positive  distaste  for  the  mathematics  and  as  decided  a 
love  for  the  classics  may  be  a  reason  why  he  should  be 
trained  in  the  very  school  the  threshold  of  which  he  de- 
sires to  avoid.  If  he  is  to  be  an  engineer  or  a  chemist 
all  his  life,  it  may  be  the  more  desirable  that  he  should 
know  something  of  the  languages  and  of  philosophy,  and 
should  even  be  compelled  to  give  attention  to  studies  of 
which  he  would  otherwise  be  lamentably  fgnorant.  The 
very  fact  that  he  is  to  make  no  direct  or  conscious  use 
of  these  studies  may  be  the  best  evidence  that  these 
studies  will  be  the  most  useful. 

It  is  urged  with  great  earnestness  by  the  advocates  of 
elective  studies,  that  at  the  present  time  the  necessity  is 
imperative  for  a  division  of  labor  by  reason  of  the  im- 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  ^^^ 

mensely  augmented  field  of  intellectual  activity  which  is 
opened  by  new  discoveries  in  the  material  and  spiritual 
universe,  as  well  as  by  the  severe  demands  which  the  new 
learning  makes  upon  the  student  of  history  and  philos- 
ophy. This  division  of  labor  should  be  commenced,  it 
is  argued,  at  the  earliest  possible  period,  because  such  a 
division  is  the  only  condition  of  the  highest  eminence 
or  usefulness.  We  admit  the  fact,  but  deny  the  infer- 
ence ;  rather  we  derive  from  the  fact  the  very  opposite 
conclusion.  While  it  is  true  that  the  special  fields  of 
scientific  and  literary  research  are  becoming  more  and 
more  limited  and  more  and  more  absorbing,  it  is  also 
true  that  the  facilities  for  investigation  are  multiplied  in 
proportion  as  the  resultsof  other  men's  labors  are  becom- 
ing more  and  more  available.  What  is  most  important, 
the  broad  and  intense  light  of  the  widest  generalizations 
is  becoming  more  and  more  serviceable  in  deciding  special 
questions.  It  is  so  far  from  being  true  that  the  special- 
ist from  the  beginning  has  the  promise  of  eminent  suc- 
cess, that  he  is  on  the  contrary  the  man  of  all  others  to 
whom  the  highest  success  is  certain  to  be  denied,  and 
this  for  the  reason  that  in  every  department  of  knowl- 
edge light  can  be  derived  from  many  others,  or  rather 
from  those  general  truths  which  the  study  of  many  special 
sciences  is  certain  to  reveal.  A  hard  and  positive  nar- 
rowness of  mind  is  the  besetting  danger  of  the  science 
and  literature  of  the  present  day.  Only  those  men  can 
rise  above  it  who  look  beyond  the  boundaries  of  their 
own  special  fields  of  study  and  labor.  Against  this  inevi- 
table exposure  no  security  can  be  more  effectual  than  a 
general  and  generous  education  at  the  beginning.  The 
absorbing  and  limiting  demands  of  professional  and  prac- 


334  THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES. 

tical  life,  and  the  inexorable  requirements  of  a  division 
of  labor,  are  decisive  arguments  for  general  education 
wherever  it  is  attainable.  The  patent  fact  that  in  the 
field  of  science  men  who  begin  as  specialists,  like  Tyn-  ' 
DALL,  and  Huxley,  and  Helmholtz  and  Spencer,  mani- 
fest the  gift  of  scientific  genius  by  the  impulse  and  at- 
tempt to  solve  all  the  great  problems  of  Philosophy  and 
Theology,  is  itself  a  proof  that  every  student  of  Science 
or  Technology  would  be  greatly  benefited  by  a  general 
training  in  history,  literature,  language,  and  philosophy. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  true  that  no  man  can  un- 
derstand the  movements  of  the  present  age  in  the  field  of 
Literature,  or  is  competent  to  influence  them,  who  does 
not  interest  himself  in  the  new  problems  which  are  pro- 
posed and  the  new  solutions  which  are  given  in  the  Sci- 
ences of  Nature.  The  narrowness  of  many  modern  littera- 
teurs is  equally  conspicuous  with  the  narrowness  of  many 
devotees  and  schools  of  physical  science.  The  tendency 
of  the  students  of  Nature  on  the  one  hand,  and  the  students 
of  Man  on  the  other,  to  go  farther  and  farther  apart  is 
becoming  more  and  more  positive  and  more  and  more 
dangerous.  Nothing  can  be  more  effectual  in  withstanding 
this  tendency,  or  sooner  bring  and  hold  these  divergent 
classes  to  a  common  understanding,  than  the  adhesion  to 
the  old  theory  of  a  truly  liberal  education  as  the  appro- 
priate and  necessary  introduction  to  every  special  de- 
partment of  study  and  culture.  All  that  is  needful  is  that 
we  should  modify  and  enlarge  this  scheme  to  suit  the 
changing  demands  of  the  times. 

The  class  system  and  the  fixed  curriculum  will  cer- 
tainly not  succeed  unless  they  are  administered  by  schol- 
arly, enthusiastic,  and  self-sacrificing  instructors.      In  de- 


THE    CLASS    SYSTEM    IN    COLLEGES.  335 

fending  these  features  of  the  college  system  we  are  not 
required  to  overlook  or  to  deny  the  imperfections  with 
which  this  system  is  often  administered  and  the  unsatis- 
factory character  of  its  results.  None  of  these  imper- 
fections of  administration  or  results  are,  however,  fairly 
chargeable  to  the  college  system  as  such.  Some  of  them 
may  be  owing  to  an  imperfect  preparation  for  the  course 
on  the  part  of  teachers  and  pupils.  Others  can  be  traced 
to  the  very  defective  education  of  the  community  and 
the  very  low  conceptions  which  prevail  of  the  nature  and 
value  of  the  higher  education.  The  college  system  can- 
not stand  alone.  It  depends  on  the  lower  schools,  and 
these  depend  on  the  sentiments  of  the  community  in 
respect  to  education  and  on  the  culture  which  the  com- 
munity itself  has  attained.  It  must  find  its  roots  in  the 
strong  and  nourishing  soil  of  a  prevailing  and  cultivated 
common-sense,  and  an  earnest  religious  faith,  while  its 
leaves  and  flowers  must  be  stimulated  by  the  sunshine  of 
refined  culture. 

In  view  of  the  many  defects  which  attend  the  operation 
of  any  system,  it  is  easy  to  imagine  that  the  novel  and 
the  untried  will  produce  better  results  than  the  familiar 
and  the  tried.  There  seems,  however,  to  be  no  good 
reason  for  abandoning  the  old  system  for  the  new.  While 
it  is  obviously  practicable  and  desirable  to  introduce 
elective  and  special  studies  into  a  fixed  curriculum,  we 
may  rest  assured  that  the  class  system  and  the  fixed 
curriculum  ought  to  be  retained  and  enforced  with  a 
more  fervent  faith  and  untiring  energy. 


III. 

CLASSICAL  STUDY  AND  INSTRUC- 
TION. 


(Read  before  the  American'Institute  of  Instruction,  at  Providence,  R.  I., 
July  7,  1875.) 


We  may  assume  that  it  is  no  longer  a  question  whether 
classical  study  and  instruction  shall  be  maintained  in  our 
higher  education.  The  assertions  so  often  repeated  of 
late,  that  classical  learning  is  no  longer  required  by  the 
present  generation,  are  now  more  rarely  heard ;  and  the 
confident  depreciation  of  classical  instruction,  in  com- 
parison with  instruction  in  modern  literature  and  physical 
science,  has  already,  to  a  large  extent,  been  either  quali- 
fied or  retracted.  It  is  now  conceded  that,  for  a  certain 
class  of  educated  and  professional  men,  classical  study 
is  indispensable,  and  that  for  this  reason  provision  should 
be  made  for  classical  instruction  in  all  the  schools  of 
higher  education. 

A  great  diversity  of  opinion,  however,  prevails  in  re- 
spect to  two  questions,  viz..  For  what  classes  of  pupils 
should  classical  study  be  prescribed  as  a  necessary,  or  a 
very  desirable  element  in  their  education  ?  and  what  are 
the  best  methods  in  which  classical  instruction  can  be 
imparted  ?  One  of  these  questions,  in  a  certain  sense, 
15 


^^S  CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION. 

involves  the  other.  The  answer  to  the  first,  wko  should 
study  the  classics  2  must  necessarily  determine  the  answer 
to  the  second,  how  should  the  classics  be  taught  1  If 
classical  learning  is  to  be  confined  to  the  few  w^ho  may 
be  expected  to  become  eminent  proficients  in  its  gram- 
mar and  dialects,  then  it  may  be  proper  to  teach  it 
after  one  method ;  but  if  it  is  to  be  used  as  an  in- 
strument of  general  culture  for  a  larger  number  of 
pupils,  of  whom  few  can  hope  to  become  masters  of  its 
grammatical  metaphysics  or  its  erudite  history,  then  it 
is  possible  that  another  method  of  instruction  should  be 
preferred. 

I  am  aware  that  some  of  my  hearers  will  hesitate  to 
assent  to  these  positions.  The  thought  will  at  once 
occur  to  them — whatever  is  worth  learning  or  teaching  at 
all,  is  worth  learning  and  teaching  thoroughly  and  well 
so  far  as  we  proceed.  Especially  would  they  contend 
that,  in  the  higher  schools,  it  is  absurd  to  sanction,  or 
even  tolerate  any  study  or  instruction  which  is  not  in 
the  most  eminent  sense  thoroughly  scientific.  Their 
maxim  is — whatever  is  studied  or  taught  for  discipline  or 
culture,  must  be  taught  in  its  principles  and  after  a  scien- 
tific method ;  and  this,  whether  more  or  less  knowledge 
is  imparted  or  received.  They  urge  that  the  object  of 
higher  study  is  training,  and  that  whether  the  boy  studies 
Latin  or  Greek  one  year  or  ten,  he  should  follow  but  one 
method,  so  far  as  he  advances,  and  make  everything  that 
he  learns  sure  and  scientific.  All  this  is  plausible  to  the 
ear  and  the  mind.  On  the  other  hand,  it  should  be 
remembered,  that  what  is  sometimes  called  a  thorough 
and  scientific  method,  presupposes  that  the  powers  of 
analysis  and   generalization   are   already  develQpe4,   or 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  339 

are  ready  to  be  unfolded.  Moreover,  it  is  no  paradox 
to  assert  that  teaching  is  sometimes  scientific  in  fact, 
very  nearly  in  proportion  as  it  is  unscientific  in  form. 
It  may  prove  itself  to  be  philosophical,  by  carefully 
refraining  from  taxing  the  powers  to  efforts  that  are  be- 
yond their  natural  and  easy  achievement ;  i.  e.,  by  shun- 
ning, rather  than  by  following  the  forms  and  language  of 
science. 

In  like  manner,  that  method  of  studying  and  teaching 
any  branch  of  knowledge  can  alone  be  truly  rational  which 
distinctly  keeps  in  mind  the  ends  which  it  seeks  to  attain, 
and  wisely  adapts  the  means  of  accomplishing  these  ends; 
Four  distinct  reasons  may  be  given  why  the  study  of  the 
classics  should  be  prosecuted  in  our  schools  and  colleges  : 
(i.)  This  study  imparts  a  knowledge  of  the  grammar  of 
two  of  the  most  refined  and  finished  languages  which 
have  ever  been  used  by  man.  (2.)  This  study  is  the  most 
efficient  method  of  learning  general  or  philosophical 
grammar  ;  i.  e.,  of  mastering  the  nature,  the  laws,  and  the 
history  of  language.  (3.)  It  brings  the  mind  into  familiar 
acquaintance  with  the  literature,  the  history,  and  the  life 
of  the  two  most  important  nations  of  the  world,  with 
which,  indeed,  all  the  cultivated  modern  races  and  na- 
tions are  most  closely  allied  in  their  literature,  their  life, 
their  philosophy,  and  their  institutions.  (4.)  Last  of  all, 
this  study  is  an  excellent  instrument  of  intellectual  gym- 
nastics, which  would  be  worth  all,  and  more  than  all,  the 
labor  it  involves,  were  this  the  only  application  that 
could  be  proposed. 

The  inquiry  would  at  once  present  itself :  Which  of 
these  four  is  the  supreme  or  the  superior  end  ?  On 
second  thought,  however,  the  question  might  arise  whether 


340  CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION. 

these  ends  need  be  regarded  as  standing  in  any  relation 
of  formal  subordination  to  one  another  ;  i.  e.,  whether 
any  one  of  them  is  properly  supreme.  A  thoughtful  per- 
son cannot  fail  to  inquire,  supposing  that  mental  disci- 
pline may  be  gained  by  classical  study,  whether  culture,  in 
the  wide  and  more  elevated  sense  of  the  term,  is  not  also 
desirable  ;  and  whether  this  may  not  often  be  of  greater 
worth  than  sharpness  and  strength.  It  would  be  easier 
to  answer  the  question,  whether  the  mastery  of  the  gram- 
mar of  either  the  Latin  or  Greek  languages  should  be 
proposed  as  the  chief  end  of  classical  study,  no  reference 
being  had  to  the  power  which  it  might  give  to  read  Latin 
and  Greek  authors,  or  even  to  study  language  and  gram- 
mar in  general.  But  perhaps  it  might  not  be  easy  to  set- 
tle the  question,  whether  the  mastery  of  linguistic  science 
should  be  made  by  any  man,  the  chief  end  of  studying 
Latin  or  Greek  for  a  considerable  part  of  seven  to  ten 
years.  Were  the  ability  to  read  with  fluency,  enjoyment, 
and  appreciation,  the  literature  of  Greece  and  Rome  to 
be  i)roposed  as  the  most  desirable  end  of  study,  some 
would  hesitate  to  place  it  so  high  as  to  oveirlook  the  other 
advantages  which  have  been  named.  These  questionings 
— not  all  of  them  easily  settled — would  point  to  the  con- 
clusion that  all  these  ends  are  important,  and  that  all 
should  be  sought  for.  Let  this  be  conceded  ;  the  ques- 
tions will  still  return,  Which  should  be  supreme,  How  far, 
if  at  all,  should  one  be  sacrificed  to  one  or  all  the  others  ? 
How  can  we  arrange  and  estimate  all  these  ends  in  that 
harmony  which  combines  grace  and  strength — which  im- 
parts culture  and  rewards  with  the  consciousness  of 
power  ? 

Our  inquiries  should  also  be  practical  as  well  as  theoreti- 


CLASSICAL   STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  341 

cal.  We  should  not  conceive  the  ideal  youth,  or  the  ideal 
instructor,  or  the  ideal  university.  We  should  conceive 
to  ourselves  the  actual  American  boy,  the  American 
school,  and  the  American  college  as  they  are — no,  not 
as  they  are,  but  what  we  can  hope  to  make  them. 

With  this  ideal  before  us,  which  we  may  hope  to  turn 
into  the  actual,  let  us  proceed  to  inquire,  what  are  the 
ends  which  we  should  propose  to  ourselves  in  classical 
study  and  instruction,  and  by  what  means  can  we  attain 
them  ? 

It  will  be  my  aim  to  show  that  every  method  of  classical 
study  and  iiistruction  is  defective  which  does  not  propose 
to  enable  the  pupil,  withi7i  a  reaso?table  period  of  time^  to 
read  the  Latin  a?td  Greek  languages  with  ease  and  plea- 
sure. I  maintain  that  from  the  beginning,  this  end 
should  be  constantly  and  prominently  kept  in  view,  that 
all  the  instruction  should  be  regulated  by  this  aim,  and 
that  whatever  else  is  taught  should  be  taught  in  subordi- 
nation to  this  as  the  commanding  purpose.  I  hold  that 
if  this  object  is  made  supreme,  all  the  other  ends  which 
have  been  named  will  be  achieved  with  greater  certainty 
and  effect,  but  that  this  alone  can  be  relied  on  to  sustain 
the  interest  of  either  pupil  or  teacher  in  their  studies  and 
their  teaching. 

I  must,  of  course,  assume  that  the  instructor  is  able  to 
read  easy  Latin  and  Greek  prose  with  some  facility  and 
pleasure  ;  that  he  has  a  cultivated  historic  imagination,  with 
some  sesthetic  sensibiHty  and  training  ;  that  he  is  interested 
in  English  literature,  and  has  some  familiarity  with  the 
grammar  and  rhetoric  of  the  English  language.  It  would 
not  be  an  unreasonable  requisition  to  add  that  he  should 
possess  a  somewhat  familiar  acquaintance  with  the  French 


342  CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION. 

and  German  languages  and  literatures.  But  it  is  not  ne- 
cessary that  he  should  be  an  advanced  or  consummate 
scholar  in  any  direction,  provided  his  conceptions  of  what 
he  should  impart  to  his  pupil  are  liberal  and  elevated,  and 
that  in  all  these  particulars  he  is  considerably  in  advance 
of  his  classes.  We  do  not  require,  because  we  have  no 
right  to  expect,  that  the  teachers  of  the  elements  of  clas- 
sical instruction  should  be  accomplished  linguists  or 
widely  read  litterateurs^  but  we  may  presume  that  they 
have  formed  and  endeavored  to  realize  for  themselves 
those  ideals  towards  w^hich  they  should  direct  and  inspire 
their  pupils.  For  one,  I  certainly  should  be  very  slow 
to  trust  a  child  of  mine  to  a  teacher  in  Latin  or  Greek 
who  had  never  read  his  Virgil  or  his  Homer  for  pleasure, 
and  who  knew  and  cared  for  nothing  beyond  the  correct 
translation  and  analysis  of  the  selections  with  which  his 
own  school  and  college  life  had  made  him  familiar.  A 
teacher  who  has  no  attainments  or  aims  higher  than  these 
can  impart  Httle  inspiration  to  others,  because  he  has 
none  for  himself.  He  can  scarcely  be  trusted  to  teach 
even  what  he  has  learned,  because  what  he  knows  has 
hardly  become  a  possession  of  his  own,  not  having  been 
taken  up  or  assimilated  into  his  best  inner  life. 

Looking  at  things  as  they  are,  and  adjusting  my  remarks 
to  the  actual  conditions  under  which  many  classical  teach- 
ers begin  their  work,  I  would  say  to  every  person  who  pro- 
poses to  teach  Latin  or  Greek  :  Do  not  content  yourself 
with  simply  mastering  your  lessons,  even  if  you  are  cer- 
tain that  there  is  not  a  point  in  the  translation  and  analysis 
in  which  the  most  dreaded  and  exacting  professor  would 
find  you  deficient.  Make  it  your  first  duty  in  the  first 
month  of  your  teaching — rather  in  the  first  month  before 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  343 

yoii  begin  to  teach — to  master  so  as  to  read  with  the  ut- 
most facihty  some  shorter  or  longer  portion  of  a  Greek 
or  Latin  author,  and  make  it  as  much  your  own  as  a  fami- 
liar selection  from  Macaulay  or  Cowper.  After  this  ini- 
tiation maintain  the  practice  of  reading  in  this  rapid  and 
cursory  way  several  pages  every  week,  of  new  or  old  mat- 
ter, until  the  languages  which  you  are  to  teach  become 
to  yourself  living  forces  instead  of  dry  and  dead  tradi- 
tions. Do  not  be  content  till  some  one  Greek  and  Latin 
author  shall  have  ceased  to  be  to  you  a  stiff  and  swathed 
mummy,  and  shall  have  become  a  living  and  breathing 
man.  In  this  there  is  nothing  proposed  which  is  extrava- 
gant or  excessive  ;  nothing  which  is  not  entirely  within 
the  reach  of  the  most  moderate  abilities  and  scholarship. 

The  immediate  effect  would  be  that  the  relations  of 
the  classic  tongues  to  our  own  language  would  be  appre- 
ciated by  the  teacher  as  never  before.  No  teacher, 
however  carefully  he  may  have  been  drilled  in  the  gram- 
mar of  his  own  language  and  that  of  Greek  and  Latin, 
can  ever  come  to  regard  a  dead  language  as  a  living 
speech  till  he  has  learned  to  read  it  somewhat  as  he  does 
his  mother  tongue,  with  a  quick  eye  and  in  continuous 
discourse. 

But  suppose  this  is  done  and  the  imjiressions  desired 
have  been  received,  what  ought  to  follow?  I  answer, 
something  which  does  not  always  follow,  even  when  the 
teacher  has  learned  to  read  abundantly  and  easily  ;  and 
that  is,  the  constant  reference  of  the  pupil  by  his  teacher 
to  the  English  language  as  the  testing  or  starting-point 
for  whatever  he  learns  in  the  Latin  or  Greek.  To  this 
end  it  is  not  necessary  that  the  pupil  should  have  already 
learned  the  English  grammar  in  a  formal  way,  or  indeed 


344  CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION. 

in  any  way  of  reflection.  He  need  not  have  been  drilled 
after  its  processes,  or  have  been  forced  to  master  its  dry 
and  abstract  nomenclature.  Indeed,  he  may  begin  the 
study  of  its  grammar  with  his  study  of  Latin.  But  it 
is  necessary  that  the  knowledge  which  the  pupil  re- 
ceives of  the  Latin  and  Greek  should  be  placed  in  a 
living  relation  with  what  he  already  knows  or  may  know 
of  his  own  mother-tongue,  and  that  the  mysteries  of  case 
and  declension,  of  agreement  and  dependence  should  be 
illustrated  and  exemplified  by  what  is  familiar  to  his 
practice  in  his  mother-tongue,  even  though  it  has  never 
been  analyzed  by  his  thought.  The  teacher's  path  will 
usually  be  smoothed  and  prepared  if  his  pupil  has  already 
learned  to  apply  the  simplest  grammatical  relations  to  a 
living  language,  even  in  the  most  mechanical  fashion. 
With  this  advantage  the  teacher  finds  it  somewhat  more 
easy  to  awaken  the  mind  of  his  pupil  to  the  intelligent 
apprehension  of  what  grammatical  relations  signify.  The 
method  too  often  pursued,  of  leaving  the  pupil  to  the 
grammar  alone,  forcing  him  to  commit  its  rules  to  mem- 
ory, and  drilling  him  to  their  dexterous  application,  over- 
looks the  first  condition  of  success,  which  is  to  introduce 
to  the  pupil  as  early  as  possible  the  conception  that  the 
classic  languages  might  have  been  used  by  living  men  in 
actual  writing  and  speech.  Many  a  scholar  can  re- 
member the  time  when,  after  years  of  mechanical  toil, 
such  a  revelation  was  made  to  his  mind.  Every  one  to 
whom  it  has  been  made  can  also  remember  that  with  it 
there  came  to  him  a  new  inspiration,  which  imparted 
freshness  and  enthusiasm  to  all  his  subsequent  studies. 

We  are  not  so  ignorant  or  sanguine  as  to  suppose  that 
this  conception  can  at  once  take  such  possession  of  any 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  345 

child  or  youth,  however  wisely  trained,  as  it  now  and 
then  does  of  a  mature  and  earnest  man.  We  would  have 
our  pupil  so  trained,  that  no  such  sudden  revelation  or 
inspiration  could  be  possible  or  necessary. 

If  we  may  suppose  that  a  just  conception  of  the  rela- 
tions of  the  ancient  to  the  mother-tongue  shall  have  been 
established,  we  are  prepared  to  follow  both  teacher  and 
pupil  in  their  course.  We  insist,  as  the  next  thing,  that 
from  the  beginning  and  onward,  liberal  reading  should  be 
exacted  of  easy  passages,  for  the  enlargement  of  the  vocab- 
ulary, coupled  with  the  recital  to  the  ear  of  selections 
learned.  Let  the  grammar  at  first  be  as  simple  as  possi- 
ble. Let  difficult  and  exceptional  forms  of  paradigms  be 
avoided  for  months,  and  only  the  simplest  relations  of 
syntax  be  recognized.  In  other  words,  let  it  be  a  prime 
rule  in  our  teaching  that  the  language  should  be  familiar- 
ized to  the  mind  as  a  language  as  far  as  possible,  and  its 
grammar  be  obtruded  as  little  as  possible,  until  a  certain 
facility  in  reading  and  in  writing  shall  have  been  attained. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  views  expressed  are  not  in 
accordance  with  the  theory  or  the  practice  of  many  able 
teachers,  and  that  they  seem  to  run  counter  to  the 
theories  of  our  best  grammars  ;  but  I  maintain  that  they 
are  correct  notwithstanding ;  that  their  importance  is 
beginning  to  be  recognized ;  and  that,  unless  the  current 
practice  is  somewhat  modified,  the  interests  of  classical 
study  and  instruction  will  be  seriously  endangered. 

The  opposite  theory  may  be  characterized  thus  :  The 
ancient  languages  are  studied,  not  for  the  sake  of  the 
language,  but  for  the  sake  of  its  grammar  ;  the  grammar 
is  studied  for  its  relations  to  philology,  and  philology  is 
studied  for  the  ends  of  linoniistic  science,  or  mental  dis- 


346  CLASSICAL   STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION. 

cipline — one  or  both.  Some  few  of  my  hearers  may  be 
able  to  recall  the  successive  steps  by  which  this  theory 
has  come  to  control  our  teaching.  The  most  of  us  know 
that,  with  the  advance  of  philosophic  reflection  and  of 
positive  knowledge,  the  syntax  of  the  ancient  languages 
has  been  more  philosophically  treated,  that  better  theories 
of  the  cases  of  the  noun,  and  of  the  moods  of  the  verb 
have  been  adopted,  and  more  satisfactory  generalizations 
have  been  reached  in  respect  to  the  constituents  of  the 
sentence.  It  is  true  the  theory  of  grammar  can  hardly 
yet  be  said  to  be  settled,  and  the  students  of  compara- 
tive philology  maintain  conflicting  theories  with  no  little 
asperity.  It  is  not  to  be  forgotten  that  each  grammarian 
has  his  special  theory,  which  more  or  less  affects  his 
views  of  syntax,  so  that  teachers  and  pupils  are  con- 
stantly exposed,  not  only  to  the  thorny  mazes  of  a  highly 
abstract  and  refined  logical  theory,  but  to  the  harassing 
discussions  of  not  always  amiable  controversies.  But, 
passing  over  this,  fairness  would  oblige  us  to  concede 
that  the  results  of  comparative  philology  are  most  im- 
portant in  unfolding  the  history  of  the  inflections  of  verb 
and  noun.  The  light  which  its  conclusions  cast  upon 
the  doctrine  of  the  paradigms,  cannot  be  over-estimated 
by  the  students  of  language  or  of  history.  It  were  not 
only  inevitable,  but  most  desirable  that  these  results  of 
the  new  philology  should  be  incorporated  into  exhaus- 
tive and  scientific  grammars  of  the  ancient  languages,  and 
that  the  most  eminent  philologists  should  write  these 
grammars  anew.  Every  critic  and  scholar  must  neces- 
sarily study  the  structure  and  formation  of  those  lan- 
guages by  the  light  of  these  discoveries,  and  not  only 
analyze  them  into  their  constituent  elements   after  the 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  347 

correct  theory  of  their  composition,  but  reconstruct  them 
again  out  of  their  elements  in  an  historic  order.  No 
scholar  can  render  any  but  the  sincerest  honor  to  the 
new  philology,  and  to  the  truly  scientific  grammars  to 
which  it  has  given  birth.  To  attempt,  however,  to  in- 
troduce the  elementary  student  to  a  scientific  theory  of 
the  paradigms,  to  teach  him  to  evolve  his  own  grammar 
out  of  his  own  brain,  or  to  impose  on  him  the  duty  of 
mastering  an  elaborate  system  of  syntax,  is  literally  and 
metaphorically  preposterous.  That  this  has  been  for- 
mally attempted,  no  well-informed  person  will  deny ; 
that,  when  it  has  not  been  attempted  in  form,  the  methods 
of  teaching  and  of  learning  have  been  controlled  by  this 
aim,  is  too  obvious  to  require  any  proof.  What  has 
been  the  consequence  ?  It  cannot  be  denied  that  a 
useful  discipline  of  the  mind  has  been  achieved  by  many 
students.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  now  and  then  a 
good  student  of  philology  has  been  trained,  that  the  ele- 
mentary and  higher  teaching  of  the  classics  has  been 
more  thorough,  and  that  a  broader  and  more  scientific 
foundation  for  future  study  and  reading  has  been  the  re- 
sult. On  the  other  hand,  it  is  equally  certain  that  a 
positive  interest  in  classical  study  among  the  middling 
and  even  the  better  scholars,  has  been  steadily  subsid- 
ing, and  that  the  capacity  and  the  desire  to  read  the 
classical  authors  as  literature,  has  been  declining  in  di- 
rect proportion  to  the  multiplication  of  the  facilities  for 
understanding  their  relations  to  history  and  culture. 
Other  causes  have  contributed,  in  part,  to  this  result : — 
as  the  greater  facilities  for  studying  the  modern  lan- 
guages, a  higher  appreciation  of  English  philology  and 
literature,  the  splendid  attractions  of  physical  science, 


348  CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION. 

and  the  engrossing  problems  of  speculative  philosophy. 
But  the  chief  reason  must  be  found  in  the  theory  after 
which  elementary  instruction  has  been  imparted,  and 
elementary  text-books  have  been  written. 

This  result  is  not  confined  to  this  country.  An  able 
critic  *  of  university  and  gymnasial  instruction  in  Ger- 
many, writes  as  follows  :  "  For  ten  years  observers  have 
wondered  and  been  disturbed  at  noticing  that  our  young 
students,  so  soon  as  they  leave  the  school  benches,  very 
rarely  afterwards  take  a  classical  author  into  their  hands. 
For  this,  not  one  reason,  but  two  in  one,  may  be  given. 
They  read  the  classics  no  longer,  because  in  thsir  nine 
years  in  the  gymnasium,  they  have  never  learned  to  read 
them  ;  and,  moreover,  in  these  nine  years  they  have  heard 
from  their  teacher,  but  have  never  seen  with  their  own 
eyes  what  fullness  of  instruction,  elevation,  and  delight 
is  stored  up  in  these  ancient  writings.  As  an  offset,  the 
utmost  possible  has  been  attempted  in  perfecting  the  study 
of  grammar  as  a  means  of  intellectual  gymnastics,  by 
scientific  thoroughness,  from  the  first  day  of  the  lowest 
form  to  the  last  day  of  the  highest.  It  was  formerly  the 
fashion  to  learn  by  play,  but  the  rational  method  is  now 
all  the  rage.  There  is  this  great  difference  between  the 
two  :  the  first  was  founded  on  false  principles  ;  the  second 
proposes  results  that  are  altogether  rational,  but  an  aim 
which  is  the  highest  of  all  may  become  injurious  when  it 
is  introduced  at  an  unseasonable  place.  Instructors 
pride  themselves  on  being  able  to  explain  to  their  boys, 
on  grounds  of  historical  and  comparative  philology, 
the  origin  of  every  grammatical  form  and  rule,  and  by 

*  Heinrich  Von  Sybel :  Die  deuischen  Uiiiversitdten^  ihre  LeisU 
ufigen  und  Bedilrfnisse.     Bonn  :   1874. 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  349 

the  same  methods  to  set  aside  the  unpleasant  exceptions 
and  irregularities,  and  to  make  manifest  to  the  youthful 
mind  the  pure  conception  of  that  conformity  to  law  which 
prevails  in  languages.  The  inductive  process  is  employed 
even  in  the  lower  classes,  with  similar  enthusiasm.  The 
rules  are  not  given  to  the  boy,  but  he  is  instructed  how 
to  evolve  them  out  of  his  httle  reading  lessons.  He  does 
not  learn  them  by  heart,  but  he  derives  them  afresh  from 
every  case  that  presents  itself.  Rector  Peter  *  has  shown 
very  clearly  that  such  a  method,  though  admirable  for  a 
mature  scholar,  is  antagonistic  to  the  age  of  boyhood, 
and  for  that  reason  to  all  the  conditions  of  successful 
elementary  instruction.  Every  science  requires  for  its 
successful  prosecution,  that  certain  elements  should  be 
unconditionally  appropriated  by  the  mind,  and  should 
forthwith  be  appHed  with  unconscious  dexterity.  These 
first  steps  are  essentially  an  affair  of  the  memory,  and  it 
is  fortunate  that  Nature  herself  has  provided  for  this 
necessity,  in  that,  till  about  the  fourteenth  year,  the  boy 
has  an  unslaked  thirst  of  memory,  while  the  impulse  to 
judge  and  reason  is  dormant  in  the  soul.  While  it  is 
altogether  germane  to  nature  and  reality,  however,  at  this 
stage  of  the  boy's  progress,  to  give  single  impulses  to  the 
power  of  judgment,  as  is  done  in  geometry  and  grammar, 
the  chief  stress  should  be  laid  upon  the  simple  acquisition 
of  material,  and  all  questions  respecting  the  wherefore, 
and  the  why,  should  be  thrust  forward  to  that  future 
period  of  life  which  will  enable  the  boy  to  answer  them. 

"  Above  all  should  it  never  be  forgotten,  that  the  boy 
learns  a  foreign  language  in  order  that  he  may  learn  to 

*  C.  Peter :    Ein    Vorschlag   zu   Reform    icnserer    Gymnasien. 
Jena  :  1874. 


350  CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION. 

speak  well,  so  that  he  may  think  well.  For  this  reason 
he  should  in  the  grammars  at  first  be  confronted  with 
the  simplest,  and  the  most  easily  comprehensible  forms 
for  systematic  development,  simply  those  isolated  prin- 
ciples which  are  indispensable  for  reading  and  under- 
standing, and  with  these  he  should  proceed  directly  to 
reading,  writing,  and  speaking.  That  the  Latin  will  not 
at  once,  and  perhaps  never  come  to  us  as  our  vernacular, 
need  give  us  no  concern  ;  it  is  enough  if  it  shall  again 
be  regarded  by  our  boys  as  la?tguage,  and  not  as  mate- 
rials fo?'  the  science  of  language. 

"We  expect  more  from  grammar  than  we  do  from  the 
mathematics.  Besides  its  disciplinary  force,  its  special 
function  consists  in  its  capacity  to  teach  the  pupil  to  find 
the  fit  expression  for  the  most  delicate  shades  of  thought, 
and  by  this  means,  to  render  him  capable  of  clearness 
and  definiteness,  as  also  of  skill  in  combining  and 
developing  his  thoughts.  ^ These  advantages  can  never  be 
reached,  if  the  language  by  which  they  are  achieved  does 
not  become  to  the  pupil  somewhat  plastic  and  living  ; 
/.  ^.,  if  grammatical  study,  and  the  practical  use  of  the 
language  do  not  go  hand  in  hand.  The  knowledge  of 
a  foreign  language  is  for  the  gymnasium  ;  not  as  an  end 
in  itself,  but  as  an  instrument  of  culture.  The  pupil 
studies  Latin  and  Greek,  partly  that  he  may  be  confront- 
ed with  the  spirit  of  ancient  life,  partly  that  he  may  learn 
to  speak  and  write  in  good  grammar.  The  additions  of 
the  modern  method  help  neither  to  the  one  nor  to  the 
other ;  on  the  contrary,  they  withdraw  strength  from  both. 
After  these  considerations,  we  shall  no  longer  be  aston- 
ished to  learn  that  the  greater  part  of  the  abiturients  who 
come  to  the  universities  are  unable  to  read  an  easy  Latin 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  35 1 

author  without  difficulty,  or  a  Greek  author  without  the 
grammar  and  dictionary,  and  that  the  majority  write 
German  in  an  awkward  and  unskillful  style,  and  many  do 
not  know  how  to  write  even  their  vernacular  with  gram- 
matical correctness." 

We  have  already  observed  that  these  tendencies  and 
consequences  in  Germany  and  this  country  have  followed 
from  a  sincere  desire  on  the  part  of  professors  and  teach- 
ers to  make  the  study  of  language  more  truly  scientific 
and  more  severely  disciplinary.  It  would  not  be  difficult 
to  show  that  if  they  are  not  checked  they  will  defeat  the 
very  ends  which  they  propose  to  promote.  That  method 
of  study  cannot  be  healthful  in  its  discipHne  which  intro- 
duces the  methods  of  science  before  the  mind  of  the 
pupil  is  capable  of  severely  scientific  processes,  and 
meanwhile  neglects  to  cultivate  the  memory  and  stimu- 
late the  imagination  at  an  age  when  the  memory  and 
imagination  are  most  active.  Grammar  in  all  its  forms 
is  the  product  of  abstract  reflection.  The  student  who 
traces  its  history  from  its  first  beginnings  with  the  Stoic 
logicians,  down  to  the  highly  artificial  and  severely  sys- 
tematic forms  which  it  has  now  attained ;  the  teacher  who 
reflects  superficially  upon  the  nature  of  the  relations  with 
which  it  requires  the  pupil  to  become  familiar,  and  the 
dryness  of  the  nomenclature  which  it  forces  him  to  learn 
and  apply,  cannot  but  be  sensible  that  the  intelligent 
apprehension  of  the  simplest  syntactical  relations  is  no 
easy  task  for  the  youthful  mind.  This  task  is  not  alle- 
viated when  the  additional  burden  is  imposed  upon  him 
of  mastering  the  theory  of  case  and  tense  formations  in 
the  light  of  their  historic  changes,  and  especially  when 
these  historic  changes  are  made  to  illustrate  a  recondite 


352  CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION. 

theory  of  linguistic  development.  The  only  possible 
method  of  making  the  grammar  tolerable  is  to  make  the 
language  interesting ;  and  the  only  way  of  making  the 
language  interesting  is  to  stimulate  and  reward  the 
memory  and  imagination  by  the  exercise  of  power. 

The  beginner  in  the  study  of  language  has  little  power 
to  reason  or  to  generalize.  This  capacity  can  be  awakened 
only  gradually.  But  he  has  abundant  capacity  to  remem- 
ber or  recite.  This  he  can  be  taught  to  exercise,  and  as 
he  makes  progress  he  will  gain  confidence  in  his  own 
capacity  and  find  delight  in  his  own  achievements.  He 
must  be  made  to  study  and  be  compelled  to  learn  at  any 
cost ;  but  it  is  one  thing  to  make  a  boy  study  what  he  can 
actually  master,  and  another  thing  to  compel  him  to  learn 
what  he  cannot  understand.  The  teacher  after  the  new 
method  now  and  then  finds  "  a  prodigy  of  parts  " — who 
has  a  precocious  and  one-sided  memory,  or  an  unnatural 
prematureness  for  generalization.  Such  a  pupil  meets 
the  demands  of  the  new  system,  and  the  teacher  takes 
his  achievements  as  the  normal  and  proper  standard  for 
the  average  boy  who  is  neither  stupid  nor  perverse,  and 
he  satisfies  himself  with  driving  an  entire  class  through  the 
unnatural  processes  in  which  only  a  very  few  can  be  suc- 
cessful. And  what  is  the  result  ?  There  is  no  genuine 
enthusiasm  in  the  work — there  is  little  pleasure  in  con- 
scious progress,  because  there  is  no  exciting  and  rewarding 
sense  of  power.  Even  the  prodigy  of  the  class  has  little 
delight  in  the  language  which  he  studies,  as  a  living  em- 
bodiment of  thought  and  feeling.  The  drill  is  admirable, 
as  it  must  be  if  the  exactions  are  severe,  but  the  sense  of 
monotony  soon  becomes  intolerably  dreary.  The  pre- 
paration for  the  class-room  is  mechanical ;  the  recitations 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  353 

resemble  the  wearisome  round  of  the  mill-horse.  As  the 
result  of  the  whole,  the  prodigy  of  grammar — the  one 
boy  among  ten — studies  philology  and  Sanscrit  in  order 
that  he  may  teach  grammar  to  another  generation.  Of 
the  remainder,  a  few  more  become,  by  much  pains- 
taking, good  Latin  and  Greek  grammarians,  who  bring 
from  their  studies  valuable  results  as  the  reward  of  the 
painstaking  application  and  the  severe  intellectual  gym- 
nastics to  which  they  have  been  subjected  for  years.  6ut 
they  retain  because  they  have  formed,  few  or  no  fresh  and 
exciting  associations  with  the  sentiments  and  life  of  anti- 
quity, and  their  impressions  are  comparatively  feeble  of 
the  wonderful  precision  and  flexibility  of  the  diction  for 
which  the  classic  writers  are  so  conspicuous.  To  read  a 
Latin  author  has  become,  to  but  very  few  of  the  many 
who  study  Latin,  a  positive  pleasure.  To  read  Greek 
prose  is  to  the  most  of  them  a  task,  and  so  when  the  col- 
lege curriculum  is  over  the  majority  of  the  class  smile 
significantly  when  advised  to  read  even  a  single  Latin 
author  for  enjoyment,  while  the  best  scholars  respond  to 
the  suggestion  with  no  enthusiasm,  and,  with  few  excep- 
tions, fail  to  put  it  into  practice.  The  teacher  has  the 
satisfaction  of  having  taught  the  languages  in  a  truly  sci- 
entific method,  of  having  drilled  his  classes  with  the  most 
exacting  severity,  and  sharpened  their  faculties  by  the 
most  perfect  milling  process  that  could  be  conceived. 
He  has  laid  a  broad  foundation,  as  he  calls  it,  for  the 
future  study  of  the  languages,  provided  the  pupil,  after  his 
seven  years  of  school  and  college,  shall  give  a  sufficient 
portion  of  the  following  years  to  the  mastery  of  the  vocab- 
ulary and  the  correct  reading,  as  literature,  of  the  great 
masters  of  ancient  thought  and  feeling. 


354  CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION. 

We  contend  that,  under  a  different  method,  the  same  or 
better  attainments  would  be  achieved  in  scientific  gram- 
mar and  comparative  philology,  with  the  addition  of  a  far 
richer  vocabulary,  of  the  power  of  easily  reading  l^atin 
and  Greek  prose,  and  of  an  insight  into  and  a  sympathy 
with,  the  peculiar  life  of  antiquity  ;  and  above  all,  of  a 
more  intelligent  appreciation  of  whatever  is  excellent  in 
English  literature  and  English  diction,  and  a  more  refined 
enjoyment  of  whatever  Christianity  and  science  have  done 
for  modern  literature.  We  also  contend  that  the  method 
of  classical  study  and  instruction  which  we  have  sketched 
is  the  only  method  which  is  truly  scientific,  because  it 
alone  follows  the  laws  of  psychological  development  and 
adapts  its  methods  to  the  progressive  capacities  of  the 
recipient.  It  is  not  one  of  the  least  of  its  advantages 
that  it.  compels  the  instructor  to  study  the  capacities  of 
the  individual  pupil,  and  to  bring  himself  into  close  and 
affectionate  sympathy  with  every  new  class  which  comes 
under  his  care  ;  in  short,  to  be  perpetually  young  again, 
as  he  must  perpetually  renew  his  own  youth  through  the 
young  minds  and  the  young  hearts  which  the  Creator  and 
renewer  of  life  brings  freshly  to  his  love  and  guidance  with 
each  returning  year.  If  the  remark  of  Coleridge  may  be 
accepted,  that  the  secret  of  genius  is  to  carry  the  feelings 
of  childhood  into  old  age,  it  is  pre-eminently  true  of  the 
genius  for  teaching,  which  in  this  respect,  like  every  other 
divine  gift,  "  blesseth  him  that  gives  and  him  that  takes." 

P.  S.— READING   OF   GREEK  AND  LATIN  AT  SIGHT. 

Since  this  essay  was  written  the  attention  of  teachers 
has  been  distinctly  called  to  the  necessity  and  practica- 
bihty  of  training  pupils  at  an  early  period  of  their  classi- 


CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION,  355 

cal  Studies  to  the  habit  of  reading  Greek  and  Latin  at 
sight,  as  a  means  of  bringing  them  forward  more  rapidly 
and  pleasantly  to  the  mastery  and  enjoyment  of  Greek 
and  Latin  authors.  Prof.  John  W.  White,  of  Harvard 
University,  has  within  a  few  months  published  a  series  of 
papers  upon  this  subject  in  the  New  England  Journal  of 
Education,  the  substance  of  which  he  subsequently 
printed  in  a  little  pamphlet.  The  University  itself  has 
proposed  to  accept  an  examination  by  reading  at  sight  as 
a  substitute  for  a  more  rigid  scrutiny  of  the  pupil's  mas- 
tery of  select  portions  of  more  difficult  authors.  Prof. 
White  and  his  associates  are  not  alone  in  this  movement. 
They  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  originated  it.  It  seems 
rather  to  have  sprung  up  by  common  consent  under  a 
common  impulse  in  the  minds  of  several  younger  teachers 
in  different  parts  of  the  country.  These  teachers,  strange 
as  it  may  seem,  are  attached  to  our  secondary  schools 
rather  than  to  our  colleges.  And  yet  this  very  circum- 
stance should  give  courage  to  the  friends  of  the  move- 
ment. If  skill  in  reading  at  sight  is  to  be  attained  with 
eminent  success,  it  must  begin  in  the  schools  rather  than 
in  the  colleges.  Those  who  would  defer  it  to  the  college 
curriculum  will  practically  defer  it  altogether.  The  late 
Dr.  Samuel  H.  Taylor  would  never  be  so  far  satisfied 
with  the  proficiency  of  the  best  of  his  students  in  the 
seventy-six  questions  which  he  proposed  upon  the  first 
three  lines  of  Xenophon's  Anabasis,  or  the  one  hundred 
and  twenty  upon  the  first  three  verses  of  the  JEne'id,  as  to 
let  them  loose  upon  a  rapid  reading  of  the  authors  them- 
selves. The  late  Professor  Hadley  would  find  only  here 
and  there  one  of  his  most  accomplished  pupils  sufficiently 
master  of  his  drill  to  be  trusted  in  the  free  study  of  Hom^r 


356  CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION. 

or  Demosthenes.  Even  Wyttenbach  himself  would 
scarcely  think  the  drill  of  the  American  academy  and 
college  united  to  be  more  than  a  scanty  preparation  for 
the  current  reading  which  he  so  earnestly  recommends. 
The  same  tendencies  which  lead  the  ablest  and  most  ac- 
complished teachers  to  defer  a  special  training  in  reading 
at  sight  to  an  indefinite  period  which  is  rarely  or  never 
reached,  will  prevent  it  altogether  except  in  the  rare  in- 
stances of  exceptional  enthusiasm  and  decided  literary 
tastes.  Even  the  graduate  who  ought  to  be  an  advanced 
student  will  be  held  to  severe  critical  studies,  either  in 
textual  conjectures  or  extraordinary  meters,  or  grammati- 
cal metaphysics,  or  etymological  theories,  while  the  golden 
harvest  of  profitable  and  inspiring  literature  shall  remain 
ungathered  by  him  forever. 

There  will  be  abundant  reasons  for  this  tantalizing  de- 
lay, all  derived  from  some  abstract  theory  of  d  priori 
necessity  rather  than  from  the  teachings  of  practical 
wisdom.  But  let  the  teachers  of  the  secondary  schools 
show  that  the  thing  can  be  done  and  the  college  profes- 
sors will  accept  it  as  im  fait  accompli,  and  will  gladly 
welcome  to  more  advanced  studies  the  pupils  who  are 
trained  to  the  facility  and  culture  which  such  a  discipHne 
will  certainly  involve.  Classical  study  and  culture  will 
become  quite  other  than  what  they  now  are  in  the  enthu- 
siasm which  they  will  excite  and  the  results  which  they 
will  leave  behind.  Grammar  itself  in  its  most  refined 
subtleties,  and  philology  in  its  historic  philosophy,  will  be 
better  appreciated,  while  the  literary  tastes  of  the  men 
educated  at  our  colleges  will  put  on  somewhat  of  their 
ancient  severity  without  losing  anything  of  the  freedom 
and  flexibility  which  are  characteristic  of  modern  life. 


CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION,  357 

No  principle  can  be  more  firmly  established  than  that 
a  certain  mastery  of  grammatical  science  is  essential  to 
the  rapid  reading  of  any  language,  whether  it  be  living  or 
dead.  The  testimony  of  experience  is  decisive  that  the 
attempt  to  read  a  foreign  language  rapidly  and  yet  in- 
telligently, without  clear  and  fixed  principles  of  grammar, 
is  certain  to  be  disappointing.  The  gains  which  seem  to 
be  made  are  as  evanescent  as  they  are  worthless.  In- 
deed, the  reason  why  they  vanish  so  quickly  is,  that  they 
stimulate  to  so  little  thought  and  awaken  so  feeble  en- 
thusiasm. But  while  we  concede  that  it  is  absolutely 
necessary  that  the  formal  grammar  should  be  learned  to  a 
certain  degree  before  the  pupil  begins  to  read,  we  con- 
tend that  formal  grammar  is  not  an  end  in  itself*  but 
should  be  taught  so  far,  and  only  so  far,  as  is  required  for 
the  easy  and  rapid  reading  of  the  language  itself.* 


*  *'  Darum  ist  die  formelle  Sprachkenntniss  so  weit  auszudehnen, 
dass  die  Schriftsteller  gelesen  und  verstanden  vverdeii  konnen.  Sie 
ist  mit  allem  Nachdruck  zu  betreiben  und  muss  sich  sehr  wesentlich 
unterscheiden  von  der  Art,  wie  etwa  ein  Commis  Voyageiir  sein 
Franzosisch  lernt ;  dies  ist  cine  iTria-T^/in]  ti.vev  vov ;  im  Gymnasium 
handelt  sich's  aber  um  wahre  Bildung.  Naturgemass  muss  nun  der 
formelle  Sprachunterricht  im  Knabenalter  vorherrschen,  und  wenn 
die  nothigen   Resultate  gewonnen  sind,  kann  er  im  JUnglingsalter 

zuriick  treten Fiir  die  Ausdehnung  der  Lecture  der 

Schriftsteller  ist  aber  als  Ziel  aufzustellen,  dass  der  absolvirender 
Gymnasiast  es  zu  einer  genussreichen  Lectiire  der  iiberhaupt  genuss- 
reichen  Schriftsteller  in  den  gesunden  d.  h.  kritisch  unverdorbenen 
Partien  gebracht  habe.  Wahrend  in  Frankreich  wenigstens  171  p-axi 
ein  andrer  Grundsatz  gilt.  .  ,  .  '■^  On  les  expliaue  {les  auteiirs) 
mats  OH  ne  les  sait  lire''''  fordern  wir,  dass  der  Abiturient  seinen 
Xenophon,  Homer,  Krito,  Apologie,  Cicero,  Livius,  Virgil,  Horaz, 
lesen  konne,  und  zwar  meist  so  wie  seinen  Schiller.     .     .     .     Dass 


358  CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION. 

The  proposal  of  Prof.  White  has,  as  might  have  been 
expected,  been  earnestly  criticised  and  opposed.  The  ar- 
guments which  have  been  urged  against  it  may  be  reduced 
to  the  two  following  :  The  prescribed  directions  or  con- 
ditions of  success  imply  a  preliminary  study  of  grammar, 
which  will  require  as  much  time  and  as  severely  tax  the 
attention,  as  the  old  method  of  slow  and  limited  reading. 
It  is  far  wiser  to  make  thorough  work  of  this  preliminary 
study  before  proceeding  to  its  application  than  to  put  the 
student  to  reading  before  this  work  is  finished.  The 
positions  of  Prof.  White  and  those  who  sympathize  with 
him,  in  reply,  may  be  condensed  as  follows  :  While  it  is 
conceded  that  a  scholar  cannot  read  as  a  scholar  should 
unless  he  reads  grammatically,  it  does  not  follow  that  he 
must  need  learn  the  entire  grammar  before  he  begins  to 
apply  it,  much  less  that  he  should  be  able  to  state  in  an 
abstract  form  the  knowledge  which  he  learns  in  fact  to 
apply.  ,  ^  ^ 

Instead,  therefore,  of  giving  the  pupil  a  minute  know- 
ledge of  the  grammar  at  the  outset,  they  would  carefully 
limit  his  attention  and  his  interest  to  those  relations  and 
principles  which  he  has  occasion  frequently  to  employ. 
The  classification  of  word-forms  and  the  rules  of  syntax 
should  be  as  few  and  as  broad  as  possible,  and  each  of 
those  should  be  applied  as  soon  as  learned,  in  a  care- 
fully selected  variety  of  sentences.  To  this  end  the 
vocabulary  of  the  student  should  be  enlarged  with  the 


man  an  Gy7?inasien  so  ruenig  lehrt  die  Schriftsteller  zu  lesen,  ist  der 
Grund  von  dem  Misscredit,  in  dem  jetzt  die  klassische  Studten 
stehen.'''' — Carl  Friedrich  von  Nagelsbach  :  Gymnasial  Fddagogik. 
2te  Auflage.      Eriangen,  1869. 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION  359 

Utmost  rapidity.  Definite  and  continued  efforts  should 
be  used  to  increase  his  stock  by  exacting  from  him  daily 
the  recital  of  a  select  vocabulary  of  words.  If  possible 
the  meaning  of  no  single  word  that  has  once  been  learned 
should  ever  be  lost.  Every  analogy  should  also  be  em- 
ployed which  can  possibly  suggest  the  meaning  of  unfamil- 
iar words.  As  words  are  never  complete  by  themselves, 
but  are  always  waiting  to  be  expanded  and  supplemented 
by  other  words  in  completed  clauses,  and  as  clauses  are 
always  springing  into  sentences,  the  eye  and  mind  of  the 
pupil  should  be  taught  as  early  as  possible  to  look  at 
words  as  parts  of  clauses  and  clauses  as  parts  of  sentences. 
As  every  language  has  its  own  forms  of  expression  and 
construction,  the  sooner  the  pupil  becomes  accustomed 
to  these  special  idioms  the  more  quickly  will  he  find  and 
make  himself  at  home  with  them.  The  sooner  he  has 
gained  this  familiarity  the  more  readily  will  he  train  his 
eye  and  his  mind  to  interpret  words  and  phrases  by  their 
connection  ;  to  read  phrases  rather  than  words,  and  sen- 
tences rather  than  phrases.  Concentration  and  quick- 
ness of  mind  must  necessarily  be  stimulated  by  the 
impulse  to  judge  quickly  under  the  excitements  of  the 
class-room.  If  to  these  influences  be  added  the  constant 
practice  of  the  extempore  construction  of  Latin  and 
Greek  sentences,  the  discipline  will  be  still  more  efficient. 
Another  important  advantage  attending  this  method,  and 
one  which  ought  not  to  be  overlooked  is,  that  it  introduces 
variety  into  the  otherwise  monotonous  drudgery  of  the 
grammar  and  dictionary,  and  kmdles  into  more  or  less 
active  excitement  the  attention  of  all  who  are  present  in 
the  recitation  room,  making  the  hour  spent  with  the  in- 
structor the  most  active  for  acquisition  and  excitement  of 


360  CLASSICAL    STUDY    AND    INSTRUCTION. 

any  hour  of  the  day.  It  brings  the  dead  language  into 
freshly  perceived  relations  to  one's  mother  tongue,  and 
compels  more  or  less  attention  to  the  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings, the  imagery  and  passion  of  the  writers  whose  works 
are  read.  It  rewards  both  pupil  and  teacher  with  an 
animating  sense  of  progress,  and  imparts  a  sense  of  power 
to  both,  as  the  capacity  of  the  one  to  receive  and  of  the 
other  to  give  are  necessarily  tested  and  enlarged  by  the 
experiences  of  every  lesson.  Not  the  least,  perhaps  the 
most  important,  of  the  incidental  advantages  of  reading  at 
sight  is,  that  it  compels  the  teacher  himself  to  original 
illustrations  and  independent  activity.  This  necessity 
tasks  his  powers  of  invention  and  creation,  and  certainly 
supposes  conscientiousness  and  enthusiasm  for  his  work. 
Hireling  and  mechanical  teachers  are  not  likely  to  be 
pleased  with  it.  Those  who  are  content  to  follow  a  text 
with  its  notes,  or  the  traditions  of  their  own  teachers,  may 
object  to  the  demands  which  it  will  make  upon  their  own 
capacity  to  invent  and  create.  Indolent  and  mechanical 
pupils  will,  of  course,  not  be  enthusiastic  for  methods  of 
study  and  recitation  which  render  translations  almost 
useless,  and  bring  their  past  acquisitions  and  their  present 
resources  to  a  constant  and  searching  test.  But  all  these 
features  recommend  the  system  to  right-minded  teachers 
and  pupils.  The  writer  does  not  feel  called  on  to  adju- 
dicate upon  this  question  of  reading  Latin  and  Greek  at 
sight,  or  to  decide  whether  the  sanguine  expectations  of 
the  friends  of  the  new  method  or  the  confident  criticisms 
of  its  opponents  have  the  advantage.  He  does  not  hesi- 
tate, however,  to  express  the  opinion  that  the  interest 
which  this  discussion  has  excited  is  itself  a  most  gratifying 
proof,  first,  that  the  faith  of  competent  judges  in   the 


CLASSICAL    STUDY   AND    INSTRUCTION.  36 1 

value  of  classical  study  and  discipline  was  never  so  strong 
as  it  is  at  present ;  and  second,  that  our  best  classical 
teachers  are  animated  with  a  more  determined  enthusiasm 
than  ever  to  make  this  discipline  thoroughly  efficient  to 
the  best  results.  The  controversies  of  the  last  few  years 
in  respect  to  humane  and  literary  studies  have  established 
the  conviction  beyond  question  that  there  is  no  substi- 
tute for  classical  culture,  and  that  classical  culture  may 
be  immensely  improved  in  its  methods  and  its  efficiency. 
Those  colleges  and  secondary  schools  which  are  the  most 
thorough,  enterprising,  and  successful  in  following  this 
conviction  in  both  directions,  will,  in  the  long  run,  stand 
highest  in  an  honorable  reputation. 
16 


IV. 


MORALS  AND   MANNERS    OF   COL- 
LEGE  AND  UNIVERSITY    LIFE. 


Rev.  William  Harrison,  Rector  of  Rad winter,  in  his 
"Description  of  England,"  2d  Ed.,  1587,  writes  thus  of 
abuses  in  the  Grammar-schools  and  Universities : 

*'  Such  bribage  is  used  that  poor  men's  children  are  commonlie 
shut  out  and  the  richer  sort  received,  and  yet  being  placed,  most  of 
them  studie  little  other  than  histories,  tables,  dice,  and  trifles  as 
men  that  make  not  their  liuing  by  their  studie  the  end  of  their  pur- 
poses, which  is  a  lamentable  hearing.  Besides  this,  being  for  the 
most  part  either  gentlemen  or  rich  men's  sonnes,  they  often  bring  the 
Universities  into  much  slander.  For,  standing  upon  their  reputa- 
tion and  libertie,  they  ruffle  and  roist  it  out  exceeding  in  apparell  and 
b[r]  anting  *  riotous  companie  (which  draweth  them  from  their  books 
unto  another  trade),  and  for  excuse,  when  they  are  charged  with 
breach  of  all  good  order,  think  it  sufficient  to  sale  that  they  be  gen- 
tlemen ;  which  greeveth  manie  not  a  little."     B.  II.,  Ch.  III. 

It  would  seem  from  this  extract  that  the  manners  and 
morals  of  students  in  England  three  hundred  years  ago 
were  exposed  to  perils  and  misconstructions  similar  to 
those  under  which  they  suffer  at  the  present  time.  We 
have  also  abundant  evidence  that  since  that  time  the  Eng- 
lish universities  have  not  infrequently  been  the  nurseries 
of  idleness,  dissipation,  and   ineligion.     The   testimony 

*  This  is  a  conjectural  emendation  of  the  text. 


364  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF 

of  Gibbon,  of  Adam  Smith,  and  scores  of  credible  wit- 
nesses, is  decisive  that  not  infrequently  instructors  and 
pupils  have,  for  a  series  of  years,  sunk  into  sloth  and  self- 
indulgence.  It  is  equally  certain  that  they  have  often 
been  animated  by  the  noblest  spirit  of  industry  and  a 
zealous  and  fervent  religious  life,  and  have  given  the  first 
impulses  to  important  and  pervasive  movements  for  good. 
The  American  colleges  exhibit  similar  alternations  in 
their  moral  and  religious  history  and  influence.  That 
their  good  and  evil  have  often  been  misconceived  and 
exaggerated,  will  be  disputed  by  few.  The  gossiping  and 
suspicious  are  always  ready  with  some  extravagant  and 
unfavorable  representation  of  immoral  practices  or  of 
decay  of  faith  in  any  college  which  is  not  the  object  of 
special  favor  with  these  reporters  of  evil. 

The  weaknesses  and  sins  of  college  life  are  none  the 
less  real  and  none  the  less  serious,  however,  because  they 
are  similar  to  those  of  other  generations  ;  but  the  fact  that 
they  are  liable  to  be  exaggerated  and  misunderstood  in 
every  generation  might  suggest  some  lessons  of  caution  in 
listening  to  all  the  "lamentable  hearings,"  which  are  so 
readily  and  so  credulously  received  in  regard  to  the  moral 
dangers  of  our  colleges,  particularly  those  which  are  prom- 
inent before  the  public,  and  awaken  more  cheerful  views 
of  the  moral  and  religious  influences  of  academic  life. 
That  college  life  is  beset  by  special  moral  exposures,  it 
would  be  senseless  and  silly  to  affirm  ;  that  it  may  bring 
salutary  and  peculiar  advantages,  it  were  equally  blind  and 
unjust  to  overlook  or  deny ;  that  a  prosperous  and  wealthy 
college  is  of  necessity  given  over  to  be  the  chosen  dwell- 
ing-place of  evil  spirits,  is  as  weak  as  it  is  uncharitable  to 
believe.   The  special  exposures  of  academic  life  in  respect 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  365 

of  both  manners  and  morals  are  easily  enumerated  and  ac- 
counted for.  The  members  of  this  peculiar  community  are 
all  young.  They  are  also  nearly  equal  in  age.  Their  pur- 
suits and  aims  are  common  in  both  relaxation  and  study. 
Their  aspirations  and  aims  are  by  profession,  at  least, 
not  ignoble.  These  inspire  self-reliance  and  self-asser- 
tion, either  of  which,  when  strengthened  by  the  presence 
of  a  large  and  most  sensitive  community,  becomes  one 
of  the  strongest  of  forces,  both  in  its  perversion  and  its 
legitimate  use.  These  young  men  not  only  constitute  a 
community  acting  within  itself,  but  a  community  very 
largely  separated  from  that  direct  action  of  the  family  and 
the  public,  to  which  other  men  in  their  youth  are  more 
or  less  sensitive,  and  with  which  they  are  brought  into 
constant  contact.  From  the  immediate  action  of  the 
judgments  and  sympathies  of  family  life,  students  are  with- 
drawn, though  not  necessarily  from  their  indirect  influ- 
ence. To  the  judgments  and  sympathies  of  the  great  com- 
munity of  their  fellowmen  without  they  are,  as  yet,  almost 
completely  insensible.  They  have  not  as  yet  learned  to 
recognize  its  existence,  or  if  now  and  then  they  are  sum- 
moned to  regard  the  opinions  or  feelings  of  the  public,  they 
are  ready  in  moments  of  excitement  to  answer  the  sum- 
mons with  contempt  or  defiance ;  rarely  through  malig- 
nancy, most  usually  through  the  self-confidence  which 
comes  from  simple  ignorance  or  want  of  thought,  strong 
self-reliance  or  an  intense  sympathy  with  their  fellows.  It 
is  not  surprising  that  in  respect  of  manners  at  least  such 
a  community  sets  up  standards  that  are  peculiar  to  itself, 
nor  that  in  regard  to  morals  its  self-imposed  standards 
should  be  more  lenient  in  respect  to  certain  classes  of 
offences  than  those  which  are  recognized  by  the  world 


^66  MORALS    AND    MANNERS    OF 

without ;  excusing  many  actions  as  between  young  men, 
which  it  would  be  foremost  to  condemn  and  punish  if 
committed  by  other  than  members  of  its  own  com- 
munity within  itself,  and  covering  a  multitude  of  sins 
by  the  broad  mantle  of  a  common  understanding  that  even 
outrageous  and  unmannerly  acts  are  to  be  freely  given 
and  patiently  taken,  whenever  the  academic  customs  or 
traditions  require  either.  In  vain  does  the  tutor  forbid, 
the  parent  remonstrate,  the  preacher  argue,  the  police 
threaten,  and  the  law  denounce ;  the  practical  reply  is, 
"  We  have  a  law  or  custom  of  our  own,  with  which  no  man 
may  meddle  as  long  as  we  agree  to  bear  and  enforce  it." 
Even  the  rules  of  common  morality  which  are  confessed 
to  be  sacred  and  inviolable  are  hastily  set  aside  under 
the  excitements  of  social  gayety  or  the  impulses  of  youth- 
ful passion,  and  the  plea  for  leniency  which  is  sure  to 
follow  on  the  part  of  the  offender  and  his  friends,  backed 
by  fair  promises  for  the  future,  is  urged  with  piteous  and 
tearful  earnestness  before  the  college  courts  and  the  com- 
munity. It  is  not  surprising  that  some  members  of  such 
societies  are  hopelessly  overcome  by  their  peculiar  temp- 
tations. The  ease  with  which  they  fall,  the  rapidity 
with  which  they  sink,  the  recklessness  with  which  they 
set  aside  better  influences  and  wholesome  restraints,  and 
the  perverseness  with  which  they  justify  and  excuse  them- 
selves to  parents  and  instructors  are  not  unnaturally  as- 
cribed to  some  evil  genius  which  is  supposed  to  haunt  a 
particular  college  or  to  be  inseparable  from  university 
life.  It  is  not  surprising  that  in  the  bitterness  of  disap- 
pointment and  the  depth  of  shame,  harsh  and  unjust 
judgments  should  be  pronounced  by  suffering  friends  and 
sympathizers  upon  the  guardians  and  officers  of  some  par- 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  367 

ticular  college  or  the  special  temptations  and  inexcusable 
neglects  of  a  college  course.  The  attention  of  the  public 
is  not  infrequently  called  to  some  glaring  outrage  against 
good  manners  and  decent  morals  in  a  particular  school 
or  college,  or  some  banded  rebellion  against  academic 
authority,  or  some  boyish  assault  upon  an  unpopular 
officer.  The  material  for  a  sensational  narrative  is  too 
attractive  to  be  left  unused  ;  the  reporter  at  once  repairs 
to  the  scene,  the  interviewer  is  gladly  welcomed  by  the 
offenders,  who  are  only  too  ready  through  him  to  appeal 
to  the  public.  Perhaps  the  college  officers  feel  com- 
pelled to  make  their  explanation  to  the  public  and  to 
reiterate  the  assurance  that  the  affair  was  trifling  and  is 
blown  over,  and  that  order  "now  reigns  in  Warsaw."  It 
is  certain  that  the  "lamentable  hearing"  of  the  whole 
affair  "  greeveth  manie  not  a  little."  Then  follow  the 
never-failing  comments  of  the  newspapers  and  other 
journals  upon  this  particular  outbreak  and  upon  the 
general  subject  of  college  manners  and  morals  and  the 
most  approved  methods  of  preventing  and  putting  down 
college  disorders,  as  well  as  the  hereditary  follies  of  aca- 
demic youth,  all  of  which  are  as  luminous  as  they  are 
confident.  Or  it  may  be  that  the  case  is  tried  a  second 
time  by  the  newspapers,  and  the  students  not  infrequently 
have  the  advantage  of  giving  their  own  version  of  the 
alleged  imprudences,  the  unpopularity  or  the  discour- 
tesy of  their  officers,  and  of  setting  forth  the  trivial  and 
even  the  amiable  character  of  the  offences  with  which 
they  are  charged.  Their  guardians  are  slow  to  re)»ly, 
and  perhaps  respect  themselves  too  much  to  venture 
upon  a  contest  which  is  certain  to  be  unequal.  To 
add  to  the  perplexity  of  the  public,  either  in  the  way 


368  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF 

of  confirming  these  unfavorable  impressions  of  the  espe- 
cial depravity  of  academic  youth,  or  their  incurable  juve- 
nescence,  the  college  newspapers  admit  the  unpractised 
eyes  of  the  community  to  an  altogether  too  frequent 
and  familiar  gaze  upon  the  interior  of  academic  life, 
their  conductors  being  altogether  too  insensible  of  the 
fact,  that  the  too  free  exhibition  to  the  vulgar  gaze  of 
their  peculiar  wit  and  wisdom  does  not  always  redound  so 
much  to  the  credit  of  the  community  as  they  would  fondly 
believe.  In  these  various  ways  it  happens  that  the  repu- 
tation of  students  and  their  guardians  is  both  unjustly 
and  justly  brought  into  discredit.  Certain  it  is  that  in 
general  and  particular  the  subject  of  the  manners  and 
morals  of  college  life  is  very  frequently  discussed  by  our 
American  public,  and  a  great  variety  of  expedients  are 
proposed  to  prevent  or  remove  the  evils  which  beset 
them. 

Perhaps  no  single  feature  of  the  life  of  some  of  our 
colleges  has  of  late  attracted  the  attention  of  the  public 
so  much  as  the  practice  of  "  hazing,"  which  within  a  few 
years  has  assumed  in  some  colleges  frightful  proportions, 
and  been  attended  with  cruel  indignities,  which  had  been 
unknown  in  other  generations.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
inquire  into  its  history,  or  to  explain  its  causes,  or  to 
trace  its  growth.  All  agree  that,  however  certainly  the 
impulses  which  occasion  this  practice  are  incidental  to 
academic  life,  it  is  wholly  indefensible  in  its  excesses,  that 
in  its  principle  it  is  ungenerous  and  ungentlemanly,  and 
even  in  its  mildest  forms  is  often  barbarous  and  cruel 
in  the  extreme.  That  it  should  be  sustained  by  the  tem- 
porary excitement  or  the  deliberate  public  sentiment  of 
any  considerable  number  of  the  members  of  any  school 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  369 

or  college,  is  inexplicable  to  all  lookers-on,  and  is  not 
infrequently  set  down  as  a  decisive  indication  by  many 
that  there  is  something  radically  wrong  in  the  constitu- 
tion or  the  administration  of  any  institution  in  which  it 
is  tolerated  for  an  hour. 

The  remedies  proposed  for  these  evils  are  as  various 
as  the  protean  forms  of  the  evils  themselves.  Not  a  few 
critics  contend  that  the  evils  are  the  necessary  effects  of 
what  they  call  the  monastic  features  of  these  institutions, 
by  which  they  intend  the  withdrawment  of  pupils,  and  to 
a  certain  extent  their  teachers,  from  the  amenities  and 
restraints  of  family  life  and  the  public  sentiment  of  the 
larger  community  without.  Only  break  up  the  dormi- 
tory system,  they  argue,  and  these  evils  will  cease  to 
exist.  Let  the  students  be  distributed  throughout  the 
homes  of  the  community  within  which  the  school  is 
located,  and  they  cannot  but  feel  the  refining  and  re- 
straining influences  which  are  so  greatly  needed  during 
the  critical  years  of  academic  life.  Upon  this  theory,  it 
is  urged  very  earnestly  that  the  larger  cities  should  pro- 
vide themselves  with  colleges,  in  which  students  can  be 
educated  without  being  separated  from  their  homes,  and 
that  systematic  arrangements  should  be  made  for  the 
residence  and  oversight  in  responsible  families  of  all 
those  students  who,  coming  from  the  country,  must  be 
separated  from  their  own  relatives.  The  unnaturalness  of 
withdrawing  young  persons  from  their  natural  guardians, 
and  from  the  gentle  and  faithful  oversight  of  near  rela- 
tives, is  emphasized  in  support  of  this  opinion,  and  the 
fearful  barbarisms  of  boarding-school  and  college  life  are 
earnestly  appealed  to  in  its  support.  The  sharp  critics 
and  eloquent  advocates  who  represent  these  opinions 


370  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF 

usually  overlook  the  manifest  advantages  of  the  common 
life  of  the  college,  which  seem  to  require  the  dormitory 
system.  They  forget  altogether  to  notice  that  the  dor- 
mitory or  boarding-house  is  a  necessary  condition  or 
consequence  of  this  common  life,  which  is  enforced  by 
considerations  of  economy,  and  convenience,  and  super- 
vision. What  is  still  more  material,  they  overlook  the 
patent  fact  that  to  attempt  to  distribute  students  of  a 
large  institution  into  families,  in  which  an  efficient  family 
influence  can  be  used,  has  never  been  successful,  except 
in  extraordinary  cases.  They  also  omit  to  consider  that 
in  cities  and  large  villages  it  is  very  often  desirable,  and 
almost  necessary,  to  remove  children  from  their  homes, 
in  order  that  they  may  come  under  efficient  moral  and 
intellectual  discipline.  This  necessity  is  by  no  means  in 
every  case  owing  to  any  especial  fault  of  either  parents 
or  children,  but  is  simply  incident  to  the  advance  of  the 
child  from  the  dependence  and  tenderness  of  the  domestic 
circle  towards  self-reHance  and  the  responsibilities  of 
adult  years.  They  also  fail  to  remember  that  the  college 
student  who  lives  at  home  is  not  unfrequently  as  much 
and  as  unfavorably  affected  by  the  impulses  and  caprices, 
the  immoralities  and  the  crimes  of  the  college  communi- 
ty to  which  he  belongs,  as  the  student  whose  home  is  a 
thousand  miles  distant.  They  also  fail  to  consider  that 
the  foUies  and  vices  of  a  community  even  of  young  men 
naturally  attract  the  attention  of  the  public,  while  the 
manifold  and  nameless  advantages  and  virtues  which  are 
fostered  by  its  discipline  and  its  better  public  sentiment 
are  noiseless  and  unobtrusive,  even  though  they  are  none 
the  less  real  and  important.  They  forget  that  the  esca- 
pade of  a  single  silly  or  vicious  youth,  with  its  necessary 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY   LIFE.  371 

penalty  and  disgrace,  may  teach  a  salutary  lesson  to 
scores  of  his  companions  which  they  will  never  forget. 
They  overlook  the  fact  that  the  moral  exposures  of  col- 
lege life  need  not  be  greater,  and  in  many  institutions 
are  not  greater — indeed,  they  are  not  so  great — as  those 
which  are  incident  to  almost  any  other  condition  of  tran- 
sition from  youth  to  manhood,  and  that  the  positively 
good  influences  which  come  to  hundreds  are  not  infre- 
quently the  late  but  the  certain  fruits  of  these  very 
exposures  and  moral  trials  which  are  dreaded  by  so  many 
as  only  evil. 

Not  a  few  censors  of  college  morals  and  manners  are 
disposed  to  charge  the  failures  of  students — especially 
those  which  are  gross  and  notorious — upon  some  general 
defect  of  discipline  and  supervision,  insisting,  in  effect, 
that  were  their  guardians  and  instructors  more  watchful, 
such  offences  could  not  occur.  The  parent  of  a  student 
who  suddenly  yields  to  temptation,  or  falls  a  victim  to 
some  barbarous  college  practice,  very  often  believes,  if  he 
does  not  say,  that  neither  could  take  place  without  seri- 
ous negligence  on  the  part  of  college  officers,  and  reasons 
as  though  a  constant  and  minute  supervision  of  the  Hfe 
of  each  student  could  and  should  be  maintained  in  every 
well-regulated  college  and  school.  Such  impressions  are 
not  unfrequently  encouraged  by  the  criticisms  of  igno- 
rant and  unreflecting  judges,  who  have  no  just  concep- 
tions of  the  difficulty  of  exercising  such  a  supervision  as 
will  be  salutary  to  students,  or  will  be  sustained  by  their 
parents. 

This  suggests  the  question  which  has  often  been  raised 
of  late,  whether  it  were  not  better  for  the  officers  of  our 
colleges  to  disown  all  responsibiHty  for  the  conduct  and 


372  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF 

character  of  their  pupils,  and  to  concern  themselves  only 
with  their  instruction.  It  is  contended  by  not  a  few 
that  the  performance  of  police  duty  on  the  part  of  col- 
lege officers  is  inconsistent  with  the  successful  discharge 
of  their  higher  and  appropriate  functions,  and  it  were  bet- 
ter for  pupils  and  teachers  that  all  special  supervision  of 
the  manners  and  morals  of  students  should  be  abandoned. 
Leave  the  students  to  themselves,  say  they,  to  the  guardi- 
anship and  watchfulness  of  the  pohce,  and  the  family  re- 
finements and  social  restraints  under  which  they  may 
chance  to  fall.  Let  it  be  understood  that  their  instructors 
are  responsible  for  their  morals  and  manners  no  farther 
than  these  affect  the  order  of  the  lecture-room  and  the 
courtesies  of  gentlemanly  intercourse,  and  are  under  no 
special  obligation  to  seek  to  form  their  character  or  to 
amend  their  manners.  The  sooner  the  old  theory  of 
college  discipline  is  discarded  the  better  will  it  be  for  all 
parties.  Students  wilU  be  relieved  from  an  odious  and 
irritating  espionage,  and  instructors  from  vexing  and 
ungracious  responsibilities.  Above  all,  students  will 
cease  to  regard  themselves  as  exempt  from  the  ordinary 
restraints  which  are  imposed  by  the  law  and  a  regard  to 
their  reputation,  and  will  feel  and  acknowledge  the  force 
of  those  influences  to  which  older  men  are  amenable. 
Instructors  will  be  free  to  deal  with  their  pupils  as  gentle- 
men with  gentlemen,  and  by  ceasing  to  claim  any  factitious 
deference  will  receive  all  the  courtesy  which  an  instinctive 
sense  of  propriety  will  be  forward  to  render.  In-  short,  let 
all  special  college  laws  be  abolished,  and  with  them  every 
arrangement  for  special  college  police.  Let  all  special  re- 
sponsibility for  the  morals  of  the  students  cease,  and  with  it 
all  provisions  for  their  moral  and  religious  training.    The 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  373 

consequence  will  be  that  the  peculiar  scandals  and  follies 
of  college  life  will  die  out,  and  the  young  men  who  con- 
stitute a  college  community  will  be  no  better  and  no 
worse  than  the  youth  of  any  other  community.  It  is 
urged  especially  that  the  most  serious  of  college  scandals 
might  easily  be  stopped  if  the  students  were  made  amena- 
ble to  the  public  police  and  the  civil  magistrate.  The 
argument  has  been  a  thousand  times  repeated  :  The  stu- 
dent of  a  college  commits  a  breach  of  the  peace  ;  he  is 
guilty  of  intoxication  or  noisy  disorder  on  the  streets  ;  he 
assaults  his  fellow-student  of  a  lower  class,  or  does  some  se- 
rious injury  to  his  property.  The  legal  penalties  for  offencs 
of  this  sort  are  fine  and  imprisonment.  Let  the  offender 
be  handed  over  to  the  civil  authorities,  be  arrested  by 
the  police,  confined  in  the  lockup,  or  sentenced  to  thirty 
days  or  six  months  in  the  jail  or  penitentiary,  or  suffer 
whatever  punishment  the  statutes  provide  for  the  offences 
which  he  commits  under  the  countenance  of  college 
sentiment  and  with  the  connivance  of  college  authorities, 
and  we  should  hear  less  of  hazing,  college  rushes  or 
riots  in  the  streets.  These  charges  are  repeated  too 
often  and  reiterated  by  the  press  too  confidently  to  be 
neglected.  For  they  seem  to  indicate  the  conviction  in 
the  minds  of  intelligent  men  that  most  of  the  moral  evils 
of  college  life  are  the  direct  consequence  of  college 
government  and  discipline  ;  in  other  words,  that  college 
laws  and  college  supervision  directly  or  indirectly  pro- 
duce the  evils  which  they  are  designed  to  prevent  or 
repress. 

We  beg  leave  to  suggest  to  these  well-meaning  ad- 
visers that,  first  of  all,  it  would  be  well  for  them  to  inquire 
whether  college  officers  are  usually  unwilling  that  their 


374  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF 

pupils  should  be  held  amenable  to  the  laws  and  police  of 
the  State ;  whether,  on  the  other  hand,  they  do  not  re- 
joice whenever  student  offenders  are  brought  to  answer 
before  the  magistrate  for  every  kind  of  disorder  which 
they  commit.  It  is  very  easy  to  say  that,  if  the  offenders 
against  college  order  were  promptly  and  justly  dealt  with 
by  the  civil  magistrate,  college  disorders  would  soon  ter- 
minate. But  those  who  think  and  speak  thus  confidently, 
might  infer  that  were  it  desirable  or  easy  to  resort  to  the 
civil  law  for  the  prevention  or  punishment  of  such  offences, 
no  sufficient  reason  can  be  given  why  college  officers 
should  not  be  inclined  to  avail  themselves  of  the  assist- 
ance of  the  policeman  and  the  magistrate.  From  the 
fact  that  they  rarely  take  this  course,  it  might  be  inferred 
that  the  reasons  against  adopting  it  are  in  their  view  de- 
cisive. Among  these  the  following  may  be  named  :  the 
student  who  engages  in  what  are  technically  known  as 
college  freaks  against  person  and  property  may  commit 
these  offences  either  from  the  spirit  of  recklessness  and 
depravity  such  as  is  incident  to  young  men  in  any  con- 
dition of  life,  or  he  may  be  incited  to  these  acts  by  the 
public  sentiment  of  the  community.  That  the  first  class 
of  offences  would  not  wholly  be  prevented  by  the  civil 
law  is  obvious  from  the  fact  that  they  are  not  wholly  re 
pressed  by  the  operation  of  law  upon  young  men  who 
are  not  collegians.  In  not  a  few  communities  in  which 
students  reside,  those  who  offend  against  the  public  peace 
are  as  liable  to  arrest  and  punishment  as  though  they  were 
not  collegians  ;  and  yet  the  combined  influences  of  college 
and  public  law  are  insufficient  to  restrain  them  from  crime. 
College  tricks,  even  when  they  become  crimes  against 
the  person  and  property  of  a  fellow-student,  are  unfortu- 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  375 

nately  sanctioned  by  what  is  conceived  to  be  the  public 
sentiment  of  a  portion  of  their  own  community,  as  the 
class,  the  society,  or  the  set  to  which  the  offender 
belongs.  Some  loose  impression  concerning  a  college 
tradition  or  custom,  some  fiery  access  of  class  or  society 
spirit,  some  fancied  sense  of  injury  or  insult,  the  thought- 
less love  of  excitement,  or  simply  boyish  readiness  for 
a  frolic,  becomes  the  motive,  or  is  made  the  pretext, 
for  a  gross  outrage  upon  decency  or  a  cruel  indignity 
upon  an  innocent  person.  The  deed  is  done.  Suppose, 
now,  that  the  aid  of  law  is  to  be  invoked  by  the  consent 
and  with  the  aid  of  the  Faculty.  The  first  thing  is  to 
convict  the  offender;  but  to  this  end  a  complaint  must 
be  entered,  or  information  must  be  furnished,  and  wit- 
nesses procured.  Unfortunately,  it  is  not  always,  it  is 
not  usually,  easy  for  the  injured  person  or  the  Faculty  to 
fulfil  a  single  one  of  these  conditions,  for  in  the  majority 
of  cases  the  party  injured  does  not  know  the  assailant, 
or,  if  he  does  know  him,  he  is  not  willing  to  inform 
against  him,  or,  if  in  rare  cases  he  would  venture  so  far, 
his  testimony  is  not  sufficient  to  convict.  The  sentiment 
of  the  community  also,  either  in  whole  or  part,  so  far 
sanctions  or  palliates  the  offence,  that  the  offender  can 
neither  be  detected  nor  corrected.  Even  the  college 
courts  are  often  baffled  in  their  most  honest  and  earnest 
efforts  to  discover  the  offenders  whom  they  stand  ready  to 
punish,  although  they  have  means  of  detection  and  con- 
viction which  no  civil  court  can  employ.  Were  it  under- 
stood that,  in  the  very  rare  cases  in  which  it  should  be  pos- 
sible, the  college  Faculty  would  bring  the  offender  to 
justice,  the  civil  penalty  might  add  no  terrors  to  the 
punishment  of  the  college  court.    A  parent  or  relative  is 


376  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF 

very  slow  to  ask  that  a  fine  or  imprisonment  may  be 
pronounced  upon  a  son  who  is  intoxicated  or  disorderly 
in  the  streets,  even  if  he  is  not  a  college  student.  For 
similar  reasons,  a  college  Faculty  may  ordinarily  be 
excused  from  bringing  offenders  of  any  description  into 
the  presence  of  the  civil  magistrate.  The  source  of  the 
evils  of  college  life  is  the  public  sentiment  which  this  life 
engenders.  The  existence  of  a  strong  and  independent 
sentiment  is  essential  to  the  highest  efficiency  and  useful- 
ness of  the  college.  It  is  only  as  this  is  sound,  earnest, 
and  high-toned,  that  the  laws  of  college  are  of  any  value 
— or  their  educating  influences  are  assimilated  by  its 
pupils.  Separately  from  the  tone,  feeling,  and  opinion 
maintained  by  its  students,  its  curriculum,  its  laws,  its 
instructors,  and  its  amplest  appliances,  are  of  little  con- 
sequence. It  is  true  of  every  community  of  men  that  its 
laws  cannot  rise  higher  than  the  convictions  of  and  con- 
trolling sympathies  of  a  considerable  minority  of  its 
members,  and  it  is  pre-eminently  true  of  the  college,  be- 
cause it  is  an  isolated  community  of  sensitive,  sympa- 
thizing, keen-sighted,  and  self-relying  young  men.  It 
follows  that  no  mere  machinery  of  laws  or  ingenuity  of 
penalties  can  purify  a  college  of  its  evil  traditions,  or 
cleanse  it  of  those  tenacious  habits  of  evil  which  have 
dwelt  in  it  for  generations,  like  leprosy  in  its  walls. 
Isolated  and  self-sufficing  as  it  is,  strong  and  self-relying, 
defiant  of  intermeddlers,  it  can  only  make  progress  as  its 
moral  tone  is  elevated,  as  the  convictions  of  its  youth 
are  reformed,  as  their  better  judgments  are  convinced, 
and  their  nobler  aspirations  are  aroused  and  confirmed. 
It  follows  that  the  morals  and  manners  of  a  college  de- 
pend upon  several  conditions,  and  first  upon  the  com- 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY   LIFE.  377 

petence  of  its  instructors  to  perform  the  work  of  their 
departments.  Young  men  of  all  others  are  keen  and 
quick-sighted  in  respect  to  the  capacity  of  their  instruc- 
tors. Even  the  indolent  and  superficial  are  quick  to 
detect  the  inefficiency  or  ignorance  of  their  teachers.  If 
it  is  the  duty  of  instructors  to  scrutinize  the  fideUty  and 
attainments  of  their  pupils,  it  is  one  of  the  chief  occupa- 
tions of  pupils  to  examine,  scrutinize,  and  study  their 
teachers.  They  are  equally  quick  to  discern  and  faithful 
to  report  their  real  or  imagined  defects.  No  ignoramus  or 
quack  in  education  can  by  any  arts  maintain  an  efficient 
control  over  those  whom  he  pretends  to  instruct.  What- 
ever one  discerns  or  detects  will  be  reported  to  and  ap- 
preciated by  his  fellows,  and  will  speedily  become  the 
possession  of  the  community. 

Secofid.  The  instructors  of  a  college  should  be  men  of 
strong  moral  convictions  and  earnest  moral  purposes. 
It  is  as  truly  their  business  to  inspire  as  it  is  to  train. 
There  are  rarely  great  achievements  on  the  part  of  stu- 
dents except  as  their  ambition  is  aroused  and  their  aims 
are  elevated  to  high  attainments,  and  no  man  can  in  the 
long  run  inspire  or  animate  others  even  to  that  which  is 
intellectually  great  whose  own  purposes  have  not  some- 
what of  moral  greatness.  Much  less  can  an  instructor 
exert  any  efficient  moral  stimulus  or  formative  energy, 
who  is  not  himself  strong  in  his  own  moral  convictions 
and  fervent  in  his  moral  loves  and  hatreds. 

Third.  The  college  should  concern  itself  with  the 
moral  and  religious  principles  of  its  pupils.  It  cannot 
do  otherwise  if  it  would,  in  these  days  when  all  higher 
scientific  thinking  runs  into  ethics  and  theology,  when 
physics  carries  us  before  we  are  aware  into  metaphysics, 


378  MORALS  AND  MANNERS  OF 

and  metaphysics  are  atheistic  or  theistic  perforce,  and 
poUtics  are  ethical  by  a  logical  necessity.  Nor  is  it  only 
because  of  the  activity  and  boldness  of  the  speculative 
inquiries  of  the  higher  education,  that  the  colleges  must  of 
necessity  be  religious  and  ethical.  It  is  equally  necessary 
in  the  practical  domain,  for  the  reason  that  thinking  young 
men  must  demand  the  reason,  for  the  simplest  duties 
which  they  are  commanded  to  do,  as  truly  as  for  the  funda- 
mental truths  which  they  are  called  to  believe.  Ethical  in- 
quiries lead  to  religious,  and  a  well-rounded  education  is 
inconceivable  which  does  not  include  earnest  inquiries 
in  respect  to  religious  truth  on  the  part  of  the  pupil, 
and  intelligent  and  loving  guidance  on  the  part  of  the  in- 
structor. We  are  well  awace  that  assertions  like  these 
sound  like  paradoxes  in  the  ears  of  not  a  few  college 
officers  and  theorizers  upon  university  education  at  the 
present  time.  We  know  there  are  many  who  persuade 
themselves  that  the  acceptance  of  positive  religious  faith 
is  inconsistent  with  true  scientific  enlightenment,  and 
especially  that  any  belief  in  supernatural  Christianity 
must  be  more  or  less  narrowly  sectarian,  and  particularly 
that  the  positive  recognition  of  Christian  truth  and  duty 
in  a  university  is  of  itself  inconsistent  with  the  liberal 
spirit  of  scientific  investigation  and  the  independence 
appropriate  to  individual  freedom.  Or  if  they  concede 
that  there  must  be  positive  teachings  and  training  in  the 
school,  they  would  lay  it  wholly  aside  in  what  they  call 
the  university.  It  were  well  for  them  to  remember  that 
the  community  by  whose  confidence  the  colleges  live, 
and  which  looks  to  the  colleges  for  the  training  of  its 
sons,  is  in  great  measure  theistic  and  Christian,  and  that 
it  would  dread  most  of  all  the  indirect  but  effective  teach- 


COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY    LIFE.  379 

ing  of  atheism  under  whatever  form  or  guise  of  science, 
and  the  denial  of  immortahty  under  any  teaching  of  physi- 
ology. It  were  well  for  them  also  to  remember,  that  the 
new  theory  of  secularizing  the  higher  education  of  the 
country  has  not  been  taught  long  enough  to  be  fairly 
understood  by  the  community,  nor  tried  long  enough  to 
bring  forth  its  fruits  of  degradation  and  death — that  some 
truths  may  be  accepted  as  true  beyond  question,  so  far  at 
least  as  the  practical  use  of  them  in  government  and  edu- 
cation are  concerned,  and  that  these  are  to  be  assumed  as 
axioms  in  a  Christian  college,  whose  duty  it  is  to  educate 
the  young  men  of  and  for  a  Christian  community.  While 
it  is  true  that  science  and  scientific  thought,  in  its  in- 
quiries and  discussions,  accepts  nothing  upon  mere  author- 
ity, and  the  atmosphere  of  a  university  mus^  be  breezy 
with  freedom,  it  by  no  means  follows  that  nothing  in  the- 
ology and  morals  is  settled  or  venerable,  or  is  to  be 
assumed  in  training  and  teaching.  That  it  is  sometimes 
not  easy  to  steer  clear  of  serious  difficulties  in  working  a 
Christian  college,  we  are  willing  to  allow.  But  that  a 
college,  as  distinguished  from  a  university,  which  is  not  in 
a  positive  sense  Christian  will  for  a  long  period  satisfy  a 
community  which  is  itself  Christian,  we  do  not  believe. 
We  do  not  admit  that  if  you  make  a  college  Christian  you 
must  make  it  sectarian,  however  ready  we  are  to  concede 
that  the  folly  and  narrowness  of  our  unchristian  sectarian- 
ism very  seriously  hinder  the  freedom  of  science  and  the 
freedom  of  Christianity.  But  we  must  take  the  world  as 
we  find  it,  and  it  were  folly,  if  not  something  worse,  to 
make  our  colleges  practically  atheistic  for  the  sake  of 
stopping  the  mouths  of  a  few  noisy  scientists  who  are 
ready  to  confess  atheism  after  the  briefest  possible  noviti- 


380  COLLEGE    AND    UNIVERSITY   LIFE. 

ate,  and  to  deny  immortality  because  it  is  the  latest  fash- 
ion of  advanced  thinking.  We  speak  of  colleges  as  con- 
trasted with  universities,  if,  indeed,  it  is  practicable  to  draw 
the  line  between  them.  How  to  draw  this  line  is  the 
question  which  underlies  most  others  in  our  discussions 
upon  higher  education.  Rather,  it  divides  itself  into 
several  questions  :  What  is  the  ideal  American  univer- 
sity ?  Can  it  be  sharply  distinguished  from  the  college  ? 
If  so — how?  These  questions  can  be  more  advanta- 
geously considered  in  another  essay. 


THE   IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVER- 
SITY. 


The  very  distinguished  Dr.  H.  Helmholtz,  in  the  dis- 
course pronounced  at  his  accession  to  the  Rectorate  of 
the  Berlin  University,  October  15,  1877,  discussed  the 
topic  of  Academical  Freedom  in  the  German  Universities. 
Near  the  conclusion,  in  allusion  to  the  dangers  which  it 
involves,  he  observes:  "In  all  these  relations  we  rely 
upon  this,  that  the  course  of  public  opinion  among  the 
students  cannot  permanently  go  astray.  The  majority  of 
the  students,  who  represent  the  common  judgment  of  the 
university,  must  come  to  us  with  intellects  satisfactorily 
schooled  in  logic,  with  an  adequate  training  to  mental 
activity,  and  a  tact  which  has  been  sufficiently  trained  by 
the  best  examples  to  the  capacity  of  distinguishing  the 
truth  from  any  fine  phrases  which  are  substituted  for  it. 
There  are  intelligent  men  among  the  students  who  will  be 
the  spiritual  leaders  of  the  next  generation,  and  perhaps 
fix  upon  themselves  the  eyes  of  the  next  generation. 
These  are  pre-eminently  the  men  who  form  and  express 
the  public  opinion  of  their  fellows  in  matters  of  science, 
and  after  whom  the  others  will  form  their  opinions. 

"  Such  men  the  gymnasia  have  hitherto  sent  to  us.    It 


382  THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY. 

were  very  dangerous  for  the  universities  should  there  flock 
to  them  great  numbers  of  students  who  are  greatly  defi- 
cient in  the  particulars  named.  The  general  standard  of 
development  must  not  be  allowed  to  sink.  Were  this  to 
happen,  the  dangers  of  our  academic  freedo?n  zvould 
quite  overgrow  its  advantages.  Let  no  one  charge  the 
universities  with  pedantry  or  arrogance  if  they  are  sus- 
picious of  the  admission  of  students  with  a  lower  grade  of 
culture." 

In  the  discourse  itself,  Dr.  Helmholtz  states  very 
clearly  and  defends  very  earnestly  the  traditional  freedom 
of  research,  communication,  selection,  and  study,  with 
their  necessary  limitations,  which  have  been  so  conspic- 
uously characteristic  of  the  German  universities.  In  the 
remarks  which  we  have  translated  he  distinctly  recog- 
nizes and  forcibly  states  the  importance  of  the  thorough 
and  enforced  training  of  the  gymnasium  as  the  necessary 
requisite  for  a  safe  and  profitable  use  of  the  freedom  of 
the  university  by  either  student  or  teacher.  This  last 
consideration  has  been  usually,  if  not  universally,  over- 
looked by  the  projectors  and  defenders  of  the  ideal 
American  university  in  most  of  the  forms  in  which  it  has 
been  urged  upon  the  American  public. 

The  theory  of  a  university  defended  by  Dr.  Helmholtz 
is  strikingly  contrasted  with  that  which  has  been  zeal- 
ously propounded  by  a  great  variety  of  American  wri- 
ters within  the  last  few  years,  and  has  been  put  in  prac- 
tice in  several  prominent  institutions.  The  ideal  Amer- 
ican university,  as  conceived  by  these  writers,  provides 
very  largely  for  academical  freedom,  but  fails  to  insist 
that  the  only  condition  under  which  this  freedom  can  be 
successfully  used,  or  even  safely  permitted,  is  that  the 


THE    IDEAL    AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY.  383 

Students  shall  have  been  thoroughly  and  systematically- 
trained  by  classical  discipline.  A  brief  review  of  these 
American  theories,  as  outlined  in  ideal  schemes  or  embod- 
ied in  well-known  institutions,  may  serve  to  make  this 
apparent. 

Academical  freedom  has  been  the  rallying  cry  of  all 
these  theorists  ;  freedom  in  the  selection  of  studies  and 
teachers,  in  some  cases  freedom  from  enforced  attend- 
ance upon  university  exercises,  and  from  frequent  exami- 
nations. The  training  for  the  competent  and  wise  exer- 
cise of  this  freedom  has  in  scarcely  a  single  instance  been 
emphasized  as  essential  to  success ;  more  rarely  has  it 
been  confessed  that  this  training  must  be  provided  by  a 
thorough  course  of  classical  study.  The  founder  of  the 
University  of  Virginia  led  the  way  as  a  theorist  and 
organizer  of  university  education.  Jefferson  was  a  be- 
liever in  freedom  as  a  charmed  word.  So  far  as  he  took 
any  model  for  his  favorite  institution,  he  doubtless  fol- 
lowed the  lecturing  universities  and  mstitutes  of  France 
as  he  knew  them.  His  university  was  at  first  an  associa- 
tion of  lecturing  schools,  in  which  instruction  in  elemen- 
tary knowledge  might  be  given  to  students,  many  of 
whom  certainly  had  no  special,  and  many  could  have  had 
only  an  imperfect  general  training  for  the  work  of  hearing 
and  judging.  Hence,  with  all  its  excellences,  it  could 
not  fail  to  be  exposed  at  first  to  the  dangers  to  which 
Helmholtz  adverts.  It  has  been  modified  in  some  im- 
portant particulars  in  its  administration,  if  not  in  its  the- 
ory. The  same  was  true  of  the  university  scheme  which 
President  Wayland  introduced  at  Providence, 

The  history  of  the  University  of  Michigan  deserves 
especial  attention^  as  it  illustrates  the  mischievous  influ- 


384  THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY. 

ence  of  this  defective  ideal  of  the  American  university  in 
connection  with  very  many  excellent  features.  While  it 
conceded  more  than  we  think  was  wise  to  the  spirit  of 
academic  freedom  in  the  demand  for  elective  studies,  it 
has  persisted  till  very  recently  in  holding  its  students  to 
continuous  courses  of  progressively  related  studies,  each 
of  which  was  indicated  by  an  appropriate  degree.  It  also 
retained  the  feature  of  daily  recitations  in  place  of  lec- 
tures. It  was  unfortunately  forced  from  the  first,  by  the 
necessities  of  its  theory,  to  place  its  undergraduate  stu- 
dents in  science  and  arts  too  nearly  upon  the  same  or- 
ganic footing  as  its  professional  students,  and  to  accord 
to  them  greater  practical  independence  of  judgment  and 
action  than  their  immaturity  could  render  wise  and  safe. 
The  consequent  exposures  to  evil  would  have  been  more 
serious  had  not  the  students  been  morally  mature  in 
character  and  earnest  in  purpose,  and  had  they  not  been 
the  sons  of  frugal  parents  and  from  a  community  singu- 
larly homogeneous  in  race,  associations,  moral  purity, 
and  religious  faith.  As  a  State  university  this  institution 
has  also  been  singularly  fortunate  in  escaping  the  inter- 
ference of  managing  politicians,  and  the  disastrous  influ- 
ence of  theological,  medical,  and  scientific  prejudices, 
by  reason  of  the  homogeneous  character  of  the  people  of 
the  State.  But  with  all  these  singularly  fortunate  ex- 
emptions from  embarrassment  public  rumor  must  have 
been  more  than  usually  false  if  some  of  her  declarations 
have  not  been  true,  that  in  the  selection  of  professors 
sectarian  considerations  have  sometimes  prevailed,  and 
the  practical  freedom  of  its  Regents  has  occasionally 
been  hindered  by  influences  and  considerations  not 
purely  academic.     The  university  has  also  had  the  very 


THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY.  385 

great  theoretical  and  practical  advantage  of  crowning  an 
admirably  organized,  a  well-administered,  and  liberally- 
supported  system  of  public  schools  of  every  grade,  which 
is  also  sustained  by  the  enthusiastic  confidence  of  an  in- 
telligent and  Christian  population.  In  order  to  bring  it- 
self into  nearer  relations  to  these  schools,  the  university, 
a  year  or  two  since,  proceeded  to  receive  to  its  classes  the 
graduates  of  the  high  schools  without  examination.  To 
this  formal  act  no  reasonable  objection  could  be  made, 
provided  the  high-schools  are  what  the  university  guaran- 
teed they  should  be,  and  provided  the  university  itself 
gives  only  such  instruction  as  well-instructed  men  (in  the 
sense  of  Dr.  Helmholtz)  are  capable  of  hearing  and  judg- 
ing. We  had  hoped  that  in  a  certain  sense  this  might 
be  true.  But  these  hopes  have  been  not  a  little  weak- 
ened by  the  recent  announcement  that  any  student,  not 
less  than  sixteen  years  of  age,  who  does  not  desire  to  be  a 
candidate  for  a  degree,  will  be  admitted  to  the  university, 
— provided  he  passes  the  special  examinations  required 
of  the  candidates  for  such  degree  ;  and  moreover,  students 
not  less  than  twenty-one  years  of  age,  who  do  not  desire 
to  be  candidates  for  a  degree,  may  be  admitted  without 
even  such  special  examination,  provided  they  give  evi- 
dence to  the  Faculty  that  they  can  profitably  pursue  the 
studies  which  they  propose.  Here  we  have  the  utmost 
stretch  of  academic  freedom.  That  it  has  an  amiable 
aspect,  we  concede — especially  when  we  reflect  on  the 
cheapness  with  which  this  university  dispenses  its  gifts. 
We  have  little  doubt  that  many  students  with  scanty  prep- 
aration and  comparatively  untrained  minds  will  derive 
important  advantages  from  their  unrestricted  admission 
to  academic  instruction.  But  we  cannot  but  think  that 
17 


386  THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY. 

the  old-fashioned  notion  is  correct,  which  Helmholtz  re- 
affirms, that  the  more  freedom  is  allowed  to  professors 
and  pupils  in  teaching  and  hearing,  the  more  imperative 
is  the  necessity  that  the  pupils  should  bring  minds  trained 
to  insight  and  discrimination,  and  enlarged  by  breadth  of 
liberal  studies.  We  would  interpose  no  objection  to  the 
presence  of  any  student  at  university  lectures  who  can 
profit  by  them,  but  we  deem  it  absolutely  essential  to  a 
vigorous  university  life  that  its  professors  should  be  stimu- 
lated to  their  highest  and  best  efforts  by  the  conscious- 
ness that  keen  and  well-instructed  eyes  are  always  bent 
upon  them,  and  that  weak  logic  and  imposing  rhetoric 
cannot  fail  to  be  discovered  and  exposed  by  the  majority 
of  their  hearers.  Especially  pre-eminently  is  this  true  un- 
der any  extended  use  of  the  elective  system  in  a  univer- 
sity in  which  instruction  is  given  by  lectures.  These 
remarks  apply  at  least  with  equal  force  to  the  Cornell 
University,  with  its  larger  liberality  and  its  more  gener- 
ous promises,  which  in  some  directions  has  stretched  the 
theory  of  academic  freedom  to  the  widest  interpretation 
conceivable. 

Harvard  University,  in  its  new,  and  newer,  and  newest 
departures,  aims  at  the  academic  freedom  of  the  German 
university,  not  considering  that  the  drill  of  the  best  fit- 
ting schools  in  Massachusetts,  even  when  followed  by 
the  required  course  of  its  own  earlier  years,  cannot  be  re- 
garded as  an  equivalent  for  the  steady  and  uncompromis- 
ing regime  of  the  German  gymnasium,  which,  according  to 
Helmholtz,  is  the  conditio  sine  qua  nan  of  a  safe  introduc- 
tion to  the  liberty  for  which  he  so  earnestly  and  so  wisely 
contends.  The  combination  of  recitations  of  the  English 
and  American  colleges  with  the  academic  freedom  of  the 


THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY.  387 

German  universities  can  only  aggravate  instead  of  reliev- 
ing the  difficulty  of  working  an  organization  which  is 
neither  a  college  nor  a  university.  The  most  serious 
objection  to  the  attempt  to  unite  under  one  system  the 
features  of  these  two  institutions  is,  that  under  the  pres- 
sure of  influences  and  reasonings  which  the  institution 
has  itself  created,  the  voluntary  element  must  inevitably 
prevail,  unless  a  very  definite  line  is  drawn  between  its 
college  and  university  discipline  and  its  college  and  uni- 
versity life.  It  had  been  wiser  in  our  view  to  draw  this 
line  by  following  the  norms  and  traditions  furnished  by 
our  existing  professional  schools,  adding  every  additional 
school  in  science  and  philosophy  which  the  widening  and 
deepening  speculation  of  our  times  requires.  In  this  way 
the  largest  demand  for  academical  freedom  which  could 
possibly  be  made  by  either  professors  or  students  would 
have  been  satisfied,  and  no  possible  difficulties  could  have 
been  encountered.  To  the  college  would  have  been  left 
the  amplest  opportunities  for  giving  a  more  severe  and 
yet  more  liberal  training  in  every  department  of  ele- 
mentary knowledge  ;  discipline  and  culture  would  have 
been  made  a  reality,  with  less  of  pedantry  and  formalism, 
but  with  more  of  severity  and  earnestness,  while  moral 
and  religious  training  might  have  been  none  the  less 
earnest  for  being  liberalized  by  science  and  refined  by  art. 
After  the  college  would  have  followed  the  university,  with 
its  freedom  for  all  those  who  had  proved  themselves 
worthy  to  use  it.  Instead  of  flattering  our  youth  and  de- 
luding the  public  with  the  idea,  though  unintentionally, 
that  the  ideal  university  will  spring  into  life  so  soon 
as  instruction  is  given  by  lectures,  and  half-fledged 
and   conceited  young  men  are  incited  to  change  their 


388  THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY. 

teachers  with  every  semester,  it  were  more  salutary  to  hold 
fast  to  the  doctrine  that  the  roots  of  true  culture  must  first 
be  established  in  thorough  fitting  schools,  and  from  these 
roots  should  grow  the  strong  and  stately  stems  and 
branches  of  a  proper  college  life,  with  its  enforced  disci- 
pline, while  to  such  a  growth  the  flower  and  fruits  of  a 
free  and  generous  university  life  could  not  long  be  want- 
ing in  such  a  country  as  ours.  On  the  other  hand,  to 
attempt  to  carry  into  the  college  the  forms  of  university 
life,  when  the  conditions  of  its  development  cannot  pos- 
sibly exist,  must  be  disastrous  to  both  college  and  uni- 
versity. The  learning  and  enterprise  of  instructors  and 
guardians,  and  the  zeal  and  industry  of  pupils,  only  prove 
that  better  results  could  have  been  realized  under  a  bet- 
ter system ;  that  the  college  and  university,  which  have 
been  so  disadvantageously  blended,  would  have  been 
more  perfect  in  theory  and  more  satisfactory  in  achieve- 
ment, had  each  been  independent  of  the  other. 

Not  a  few  of  our  theorizers  contend  that  the  ideal 
American  university  can  only  be  realized  by  the  aid  and 
direction  of  the  State.  They  look  to  the  few  State  uni- 
versities which  have  maintained  a  respectable  existence 
amid  the  wrecks  of  so  many — pre-eminent  among  which  is 
the  University  of  Michigan — as  the  germs  of  the  Universi- 
ties which  alone  promise  to  be  permanent  and  great,  and 
to  the  as  yet  unchartered  and  unendowed  University  of 
the  Nation,  as  the  protector  and  nurse  of  them  all,  con- 
tending that  in  the  future  development  and  perfection  of 
our  educational  system  no  other  can  survive  in  the  strug- 
gle for  existence.  Their  reasons  are  the  following :  As 
society  advances,  the  State  will  more  and  more  liberally 
provide  for  the  education  of  all  its  citizens.     As  the  lower 


THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY.  389 

schools  improve,  so  must  the  higher.  As  the  advantages 
of  a  more  complete  education  make  themselves  manifest 
in  the  intellectual,  moral,  and  industrial  progress  of  the 
citizens,  the  community  will  demand  a  more  liberal  en- 
dowment and  patronage  of  its  highest  institutions,  and  the 
conviction  will  prevail  that  the  best  intellectual  resources 
should  be  enlisted,  at  whatever  cost,  in  the  noble  service 
of  educating  its  citizens.  It  will  follow,  as  a  necessary- 
consequence,  that  the  universities  of  the  State  will  surpass 
in  resources  and  appliances  every  institution  of  an  in- 
dividual or  corporate  character.  The  advocates  of  this 
theory  rest  their  hopes  upon  the  interest  in  every  form  of 
popular  education  which  is  everywhere  prevalent,  and 
look  forward  to  the  time  as  near  when  the  State  shall 
esteem  it  to  be  its  duty  and  its  honor  to  provide  public 
universities,  at  the  public  cost,  with  which  no  private  cor- 
poration can  possibly  compete. 

Against  these  arguments  it  is  enough  to  reply  that  ex- 
perience has  proved  that  it  is  difficult,  if  not  impractica- 
ble, to  preserve  a  State  university  from  interference  by 
popular  and  political  critics  and  leaders.  However  care- 
fully the  boards  of  management  are  removed  from  direct 
interference  on  the  part  of  political  or  popular  leaders,  the 
Regents  of  a  State  university  can  never  be  wholly  removed 
from  public  and  private  demands  and  remonstrances  on 
the  part  of  men  who  have  the  ear  of  the  people  for  the 
hour.  Places  will  be  sought  for  by  unworthy  aspirants 
and  their  friends  ;  the  teachings  of  the  university  will  be 
called  in  question  on  every  point  where  they  bear  upon 
current  questions  of  science,  or  religion,  or  finance,  or 
health,  or  education.  Whatever  theory  of  culture  the 
university  may  adopt  will  now  and  then  be  assailed  by 


39©  THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY. 

an  organization  of  honest  or  dishonest  demagogues,  either 
educational  or  political. 

A  great  university  must  be  the  growth  of  time,  during 
which  a  commonwealth  of  seekers  after  knowledge  shall 
have  been  trained  by  one  another,  and  shall  have  learned 
to  accept  common  principles,  to  adopt  common  aims, 
and  to  share  in  a  culture  that  has  been  warmed  and  made 
effective  by  active  personal  sympathy.  To  success  in 
such  a  growth,  independence  is  the  prime  and  indispen- 
sable condition.  The  principles  may  be  defective,  the 
training  may  be  defective,  isolation  and  seclusion  may 
confirm  prejudices,  but  with  independence  there  can  be 
strength  and  continuity,  while  without  it  there  can  be 
neither.  A  State  university  with  no  chartered  privileges 
can  never  in  the  best  sense  be  a  society  that  perpetuates 
itself,  but  must  have  a  precarious,  and  therefore  an  un- 
certain life.  To  expect  for  a  State  or  a  National  Uni- 
versity stability  or  independence  in  such  a  country  as 
ours  is  to  hope  against  reason  and  experience. 

It  is  urged  still  further  in  their  favor  that  no  other  in- 
stitutions can  be  administered  with  entire  freedom  from 
partisan  and  sectarian  influences.  The  State  university 
alone  can  rise  above  the  party  and  personal  biases  which 
prevail  in  all  scientific  schools  and  religious  sects,  and 
which  constantly  control  the  appointments  and  hinder 
the  researches  of  the  most  enlightened  professors  and 
students.  It  is  only  in  the  universities  which  are  sup- 
ported and  directed  by  the  State  that  there  can  be 
insured  the  most  absolute  freedom  for  investigation, 
unbiased  liberty  of  instruction,  and  untrammelled  desire 
for  truth.  Every  other  school  and  university  must  neces- 
sarily be  more  or  less  influenced  by  some  foregone  con- 


THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY.  39 1 

elusion  of  science,  or  some  accepted  dogma  of  religion. 
Moreover,  it  is  only  to  the  State  that  we  can  look  for  the 
liberal  endowment  of  simple  research.  Other  institutions 
can  do  little  more  than  provide  for  chairs  of  instruction ; 
the  State  may  be  expected  to  provide  for  the  sustenance, 
the  apparatus,  and  the  museums  which  those  require  who 
are  predestined  to  the  service  of  science  as  investigators ; 
the  few  favored  souls  who,  as  by  a  star  on  their  foreheads, 
are  set  apart  from  the  vulgar  duties  of  imparting  truth  to 
others,  and  are  consecrated  to  the  more  sacred  functions 
of  discovery  and  research.  Thus  write  many  theorists 
upon  education  who  look  to  universities  endowed  and 
in  some  sense  controlled  by  the  State,  as  the  only  insti- 
tutions which  are  destined  to  attain  the  highest  rank  and 
to  render  the  most  eminent  service.  These  gentlemen 
are  especially  disturbed  by  the  so-called  sectarian  uni- 
versities, as  they  persist  in  designating  every  college 
which  recognizes  any  formula  of  Christian  or  religious 
belief,  overlooking  entirely  the  notorious  fact  that  sects 
are  numerous  in  science,  engendering  strifes,  and  bitter- 
ness, and  intolerance,  and  that  the  dogmas  which  they 
hold  are  represented  by  professors  and  schools,  as  truly 
as  when  these  dogmas  pertain  to  matters  of  religion.  It  is 
also  assumed  that  all  questions  of  religion  should  in  a  uni- 
versity be  treated  as  open  questions,  and  that  they  cannot 
be  discussed  with  any  scientific  fairness  unless  every 
possible  opinion  is  represented  by  some  ardent  devotee 
or  believer,  and  that  this  cannot  be  thought  of  in  a  univer- 
sity which  recognizes  any  dogma  of  religion  as  settled  or 
true.  This  opposition  to  universities  which  call  them- 
selves Christian  is  not  confined  to  the  advocates  of 
State  universities.     It  is  urged  with  equal  spirit  by  the 


592  THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY. 

representatives  of  some  corporate  institutions  which  have 
no  relations  to  the  State,  and  who,  moreover,  are  un- 
friendly to  State  universities. 

Both  contend  that  the  division  of  the  religious  com- 
munity into  sects  is  incompatible  with  that  unity  of 
action  and  that  liberality  of  endowment  which  are  indis- 
pensable to  success.  This  argument  may  now  and  then 
hold  against  institutions  which  deserve  to  be  called  de- 
nominational or  sectarian,  viz.,  institutions  which  are 
avowedly  founded  and  sustained  in  the  interest  of  a  sin- 
gle Christian  sect.  It  must  be  conceded  that  in  the  com- 
munity of  science  and  letters  an  institution  of  this  class 
cannot  look  for  the  widest  influence.  However  impor- 
tant its  scientific  and  educating  power  may  be  upon  its 
own  pupils,  and  within  its  own  sect  or  church,  and  indi- 
rectly among  the  learned,  it  cannot  but  be  seriously  re- 
stricted as  an  instrument  of  general  culture  and  re- 
search. The  most  perfect  examples  of  institutions  of  this 
class  are  those  of  the  Romish  Church,  and  they  count 
this  no  reproach  from  their  point  of  view.  Protestant 
Christians  and  the  Protestant  community,  with  rare  ex- 
ceptions, however  intensely  sectarian  or  denominational 
either  may  be,  do  not  regard  the  inculcation  of  any  of 
the  special  doctrines  of  their  sect,  or  the  maintenance  of 
some  form  of  worship,  or  the  maintenance  of  a  denomina- 
tional esprit  de  corps,  as  the  supreme  object  of  their  col- 
lege or  university.  Hence,  to  most  Protestants,  there  is 
a  propriety  in  objecting  against  a  sectarian  university 
or  college,  as  an  incongruous  and  inconsistent  concep- 
tion. No  such  objection,  however,  can  be  urged  against  a 
Christian  college  or  a  Christian  university  that  is  truly 
Protestant   and  liberal   in  its   spirit.     As  Protestant,  it 


THE    IDEAL    AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY.  393 

must  try  all  truth  by  evidence,  and  hold  fast  only  that 
which  stands  this  test.  It  must  be  a  friend  of  all  truth 
that  is  new,  and  believe  in  progress  in  science  and  criti- 
cism in  morals  and  theology  as  possible  and  desirable. 
It  must  respond  to  every  challenge  that  any  dissentient 
may  offer.  Even  should  all  its  teachers  be  positive 
Christian  believers,  and  even  be  zealous  in  Christian  earn- 
estness, it  does  not  follow  that  they  are  incapable  of  un- 
derstanding and  of  fairly  representing  the  arguments  of 
an  atheist  or  a  materialist,  any  more  than  it  follows  that 
a  believer  in  the  Newtonian  physics  is  incapable  of  doing 
justice  to  Ptolemy's  theory  of  the  celestial  mechanics. 
While  it  is  true  that  a  Christian  believer,  like  every  other 
earnest  believer,  is  liable  to  be  sectarian,  it  should  also  not 
be  forgotten  that  the  unbeliever  is  exposed  to  the  same 
peril,  while  Christianity  furnishes  motives  of  toleration  and 
liberality  which  are  peculiar,  and  which,  when  enforced 
by  the  liberalizing  spirit  of  intellectual  culture,  is  itself  a 
security  against  the  unscientific  spirit.  Nor  should  it 
be  forgotten,  when  the  German  universities  are  cited  as 
instances  of  the  liberal  spirit  in  which  the  State  can 
protect  academical  freedom,  that  the  State  in  Germany 
continues,  in  an  important  sense,  to  perform  the  func- 
tions of  a  Christian  State,  in  a  sense  of  which  we  know 
nothing  ;  that,  however  indifferent  it  may  be  to  university, 
teaching,  in  some  of  its  relations,  it  is  stringent  enough  in 
others  ;  and,  moreover,  that  in  its  gymnasial  curriculum 
it  imposes  some  form  of  positive  religious  instruction 
from  the  beginning  to  the  end.  We  cannot  forget  that, 
happily,  we  have  in  this  country  a  large  community  of 
scientists  and  philosophers  who  are  avowedly  Christian, 
and  are  yet  neither  bigots  nor  fools ;  nor  that  it  is  largely 
17* 


394  THE    IDEAL    AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY. 

the  braggarts  and  romancers  in  science  and  the  Bohemi- 
ans in  letters  who  seem  never  satisfied  and  never  tired 
with  asserting  that  theism  and  Christianity  are  regarded 
as  exploded  by  the  truly  advanced  and  scientific.  Nor 
can  we  forget  that  the  large  community  of  parents  who 
in  our  country  endow  and  patronize  universities  and  col- 
leges are  men  and  women  who  in  some  sense  are  intelli- 
gently and  earnestly  Christian.  It  follows  that,  if  our 
State  universities  cannot  be  in  some  sense  positively 
Christian,  the  people  who  control  the  State  will  not  sus- 
tain them.  They  will  endow  and  patronize  institutions 
in  which  Christian  theism  is  positively  taught,  and  where 
something  of  Christian  influences  may  be  used.  How 
long  this  can  continue  to  be  true  in  many  of  the  State 
universities  it  is  not  easy  to  predict.  The  tide  is  now 
setting  strongly  towards  the  complete  secularization  of 
our  public  educational  system.  It  may  be  the  current 
will  prevail.  Should  it  rush  through  our  higher  schools, 
and  sweep  out  from  them  all  opportunity  for  reflective 
thought  on  God,  and  duty,  and  immortality  ;  should  it 
exclude  all  study  of  history  in  the  light  of  God's  presence 
and  guiding  hand,  and  all  inspiration  of  literature  which 
is  furnished  by  faith  and  worship — it  will  give  us  an  edu- 
cation so  barren  and  degrading  that  Christian  parents 
will  abandon  the  high  schools  in  abhorrence,  and  will 
shun  the  universities  to  which  they  open  the  way  as  they 
would  the  infected  wards  of  a  house  of  death.  The  State 
universities  and  the  secular  universities  that  call  them- 
selves non-religious  or  non-Christian  have  quite  enough 
to  do  to  keep  their  own  houses  in  a  proper  sanitary  con- 
dition, without  occupying  themselves  with  criticising  those 
of  their  neighbors. 


THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN   UNIVERSITY.  395 

Even  the  scientists  themselves  are  aroused,  by  the 
excesses  of  their  own  romancers,  to  consider  the  effect 
on  the  character  and  morals  of  their  pupils,  and  the  safety 
of  the  community,  of  some  of  the  dogmas  of  atheistic 
evolutionism  which  in  some  quarters  are  asserted  to  be 
axiomatic.  It  is  a  significant  fact  that  less  than  a  month 
before  the  delivery  of  the  address  of  Helmholtz  to  wliich 
we  have  referred,  an  address  was  given  at  Munich  by  Dr. 
Rudolph  Virchow,  before  the  fiftieth  gathering  of  Ger- 
man physicians  and  scientists,  On  the  Freedofn  of  Science 
ifi  the  Modern  State,  in  which  ^he  forcibly  distinguishes 
between  those  conclusions  in  science  which  may  be  ac- 
cepted as  established  or  objective  truths,  and  those  hy- 
potheses, or  highly  probable  theories  which  have  not 
reached  this  position.  The  first  only,  in  his  view,  are 
to  be  taught  in  any  sense  by  authority  in  the  university 
and  the  school  of  science  ;  the  second  are  to  be  held  in 
abeyance.  The  entire  address  is  an  injunction  of  cau- 
tion to  scientific  inquirers,  against  giving  sanction  and 
currency  to  doctrines  which  might  be  dangerous  to  the 
public  order,  as  well  as  to  private  morality,  in  the  con- 
fident and  reckless  manner  in  which  this  has  been  done, 
in  the  last  few  years,  in  universities  and  before  scientific 
associations.  The  high  position  and  the  free  spirit  of 
the  writer,  give  no  little  importance  to  this  deliverance 
of  his,  as  indicating  that  scientific  men  are  beginning  to 
feel  that  neither  academic  nor  scientific  freedom  is  unlim- 
ited, and  that  a  reaction  of  sobriety  has  commenced 
against  the  audacity  of  briUiant  romancing  in  science 
and  immoral  and  irreverent  speculation  in  criticism  and 
philosophy. 

If  the  university  and  scientific  activity  of  Germany 


396  THE    IDEAL   AMERICAN    UNIVERSITY. 

cannot  be  wholly  dissevered  from  the  life  of  its  people, 
much  less  can  it  in  a  country  like  ours,  in  which  the  most 
recondite  scientific  thought  diffuses  itself  most  rapidly 
through  all  the  strata  of  society,  and  the  latest  conjec- 
tures of  brilliant  theorists  or  critics  are  accepted  as 
axioms  by  thousands  of  quick-minded  and  sympathetic 
readers.  If  any  community  needs,  for  its  own  security, 
to  be  defended  against  universities  where  extemporized 
or  one-sided  professors  have  unlimited  freedom  to  ex- 
pound adventurous  theories  before  half-educated  and  un- 
trained pupils,  it  is  a  country  in  which  speculation  is  so 
rapidly  crystallized  into  faith,  and  brilliant  theorizing  is  so 
readily  accepted  as  established  truth.  If  the  universities 
of  a  country  in  which  the  people  rule  ever  become  the 
chief  seats  of  scientific  demagogues,  and  their  lectures 
are  crowded  by  a  conceited  and  half-educated  mob,  the 
country  itself  will  find  that  neither  its  popular  nor  its 
academic  freedom  will  long  endure,  nor  will  they  be  long 
worth  preserving  for  any  honor  or  blessings  which  they 
may  bring. 

There  is  one  feature  of  the  ideal  American  university 
which,  in  the  minds  of  many,  is  regarded  as  more  impor- 
tant than  any  which  has  been  considered,  and  that  is,  the 
Co-education  of  the  Sexes.  This  we  will  reserve  for  a 
separate  essay. 


VI. 

CO-EDUCATION  OF  THE  SEXES. 


It  is  inevitable,  in  the  judgment  of  many  persons,  that 
the  future  American  university  should  be  opened  to  both 
the  sexes.  Such  persons  are  confident  that  the  highest 
schools  of  learning  will  find  it  not  only  desirable  but 
necessary  to  grant  their  privileges  to  each  on  the  same 
footing,  for  their  excellent  influence  upon  one  another 
and  upon  the  manners  and  morals  of  the  community. 
Not  a  few  writers  upon  education  are  very  positive  that 
this  arrangement  will  certainly  remove  the  most  serious 
difficulties  under  which  colleges  and  universities  labor  at 
the  present  time.  From  this  opinion  others  very  earn- 
estly dissent.  The  evidence  and  the  arguments  for  and 
against,  are  fully  presented  in  a  work  entitled  "  The 
Liberal  Education  of  Women  :  The  Demand  and  the 
Method,''  etc.,  edited  by  the  late  Prof.  James  Orton,  of 
Vassar  College.  This  collection  of  essays  so  nearly  ex- 
hausts the  facts  and  the  reasonings  on  both  sides  as  to 
leave  little  more  to  be  suggested.  Unfortunately  the 
discussion  of  this  subject,  in  the  minds  of  most  people,  is 
mixed  with  that  of  several  other  points  in  respect  to  the 
relations  of  the  sexes,  which  are  discussed  with  great 
earnestness    and    often  with   no   little    acrimony.     It  is 


398  CO-EDUCATION    OF    THE    SEXES. 

most  important  to  remember  that  the  question  is  not 
whether  women  are  the  equals  of  men  in  intellectual 
capacity  and  intellectual  enthusiasm  ;  nor  whether  their 
health  will  allow  the  same  continuous  tension  to  which 
young  men  are  subjected  ;  nor  whether  it  is  desirable 
that  they  should  go  through  the  same  curriculum  ;  nor 
whether  their  presence  in  classes  and  in  the  academic 
community  would  not  often  be  most  salutary;  nor 
whether  in  communities  in  which  educational  appliances 
are  scanty  and  incomplete,  and  aspirants  for  higher  edu- 
cation are  few,  it  is  not  only  admissible  but  even  desira- 
ble to  allow  females  to  enter  the  college  and  the  uni- 
versity ;  nor  whether  in  communities  more  abundantly 
supplied  with  educational  facilities  they  may  not  be  ad- 
mitted to  special  courses  and  to  select  classes;  nor 
whether  in  exceptional  circumstances  as  to  the  character 
and  training  of  the  inmates,  or  the  religious  influences  of 
the  institution  co-education  is  not  positively  beneficial — 
but  it  is  whether  the  education  of  the  sexes  together  as 
members  on  equal  footing  in  the  same  college  or  uni- 
versity is  to  be  regarded  as  a  desirable  or  normal  arrange- 
ment in  an  ideal  college  or  university.  The  question  as 
thus  stated  is  purely  hypothetical — a  question  of  doctrine 
or  theory.  It  is,  however,  an  important  question  in  the 
minds  of  all  those  persons  who  find  in  co-education  the 
solution  of  many  difficult  educational  problems,  and  who 
contend  that  for  them  there  is  no  other  so  satisfactory 
an  adjustment.  It  is  equally,  if  not  more  important,  that 
it  should  be  cleared  of  all  the  other  questions  with  which 
it  is  usually  blended,  so  that  it  may  be  decided  on  its  own 
merits.  It  is  also  desirable,  if  it  were  possible,  that  it 
should  be  discussed  dispassionately,   in   a   temper  free 


CO-EDUCATION    OF    THE    SEXES.  399 

from  the  heat  and  excitement  and  querulousness  which 
seem  to  be  inseparable  from  any  claims  of  rights  or  com- 
plaints of  wrongs  as  between  the  sexes  or  the  champions 
of  either.  We  believe  that  women  as  a  class  are  equal 
to  men  in  capacity  and  enthusiasm  ;  that  as  teachers  and 
pupils  they  are  capable  of  rapid  advancement  and  dis- 
tinguished success.  We  also  believe  that  the  considera- 
tion of  health  in  many  cases  need  create  no  decisive  ob- 
jection to  their  reciting  in  the  same  classes  and  listening 
to  the  same  lectures  with  boys  and  young  men.  We 
believe  that  the  curriculum  for  each  ought  not  in  many 
studies  to  be  essentially  different ;  that  although  the  pro- 
portion of  studies  for  the  two  sexes  may  differ,  yet  there 
are  not  a  few  women  who  are  capable  of  excelling  in 
manly  studies,  and  not  a  few  men  who  are  feminine  in 
tastes  and  pursuits,  and  that  therefore  co-education 
might  introduce  a  desirable  flexibility  and  variety  into  the 
curriculum  of  the  university,  were  co-education  for  gen- 
eral reasons  desirable.  We  doubt  not  in  the  least  that  in 
some  institutions  the  presence  of  the  two  sexes  is  advan- 
tageous to  the  manners  and  morals  of  each,  nor  that  in 
every  institution  ladies  may  properly  attend  upon  occa- 
sional classes.  We  do  not  call  in  question  the  testi- 
mony, which  is  so  abundant,  that  in  circumstances  of  an 
exceptional  character,  co-education  may  be  attended 
with  positive  benefits.  These  concessions,  as  they  might 
be  called,  may  remove  some  of  the  most  serious  objec- 
tions to  co-education  in  the  minds  of  many.  On  the 
other  hand,  so  far  as  the  advocates  of  co-education  are 
content  to  rest  their  cause  upon  these  irrelevant  and  in- 
decisive considerations,  the  concessions  only  expose  more 
fully  the  weakness  of  their  cause  provided  decisive  reasons 


400  CO-EDUCATION    OF    THE    SEXES. 

can  be  urged  against  the  arrangement  as  permanent  and 
normal.  These  reasons,  if  they  seem  to  be  few,  are  in 
our  view  weighty. 

The  community  is  beginning  to  supply  itself  with  female 
colleges  and  universities.  It  is  also  ready  to  furnish 
them  as  rapidly  as  they  are  needed.  These  are  coming 
into  existence  m  a  way  that  is  natural  and  legitimate, 
as  the  outgrowths  of  lower  female  seminaries  and  schools. 
We  do  not  say  that  every  institution  which  calls  itself  a 
female  college  deserves  to  be  called  such  in  fact.  But 
no  one  will  dispute  that  there  are  at  least  two  or  three 
institutions  in  this  country  which  as  truly  deserve  to  be 
called  colleges  as  the  majority  of  the  colleges  for  men. 
In  England,  also,  Girton  College  gives  university  in- 
struction, and  holds  intimate  relations  with  the  University 
of  Cambridge.  So  far  as  this  country  is  concerned,  we 
may  say  with  confidence  that  there  are  as  many  colleges 
for  females  as  are  demanded  by  females  qualified  to  avail 
themselves  of  their  advantages,  due  allowance  being  made 
for  those  communities  in  which,  as  a  temporary  arrange- 
ment, the  few  persons  who  require  college  culture  may 
be  accommodated  in  colleges  not  specially  designed  for 
themselves.  Should  a  general  and  pressing  want  be  felt 
and  expressed  for  many  female  colleges,  and  any  diffi- 
culty be  experienced  in  supplying  it,  there  are  scores  of 
colleges  already  in  being  which  might  at  once  be  assigned 
for  their  use,  with  advantage  to  the  community.  There 
are,  then,  or  there  can  be  provided,  as  many  female  col- 
leges as  are  needed.  If  it  is  argued  that  the  supply 
should  precede  the  demand  in  order  to  stimulate  it,  then 
let  the  colleges  which  are  needed  be  created  in  advance  of 
the  want  which  is  real,  though  unfelt  by  those  who  suffer 


CO-EDUCATION    OF   THE    SEXES.  40I 

under  it.  It  certainly  is  as  easy  to  supply  colleges  for 
women  as  colleges  for  men,  if  indeed  there  are  not  already 
in  existence  twice  or  five  times  as  many  as  are  needed  for 
both.  No  reason  can  be  urged  for  co-education,  on  the 
ground  that  there  is  a  demand  that  college  education 
should  be  furnished  to  females.  The  only  reply  to  this 
argument  must  be  that  the  older  institutions  furnish 
advantages  which  the  newer  cannot — advantages  which 
time  can  only  manure  and  supply — and  that,  in  order  to 
enjoy  them,  both  sexes  must  be  admitted  to  the  same 
institutions.  As  an  argumentum  ad  hominem^  the  reply 
would  in  most  cases  be  fitting  that,  in  the  opinion  of  the 
majority  of  the  advocates  of  co-education,  the  newer  col- 
leges and  universities  are  better  for  men  and  for  women 
than  the  older  ;  also,  that  the  newest  female  colleges  are, 
in  fact,  amply  furnished  with  apparatus,  and  libraries,  and 
other  appliances,  while  their  instructors  are  glowing  with 
the  enthusiasm  and  confidence  of  youth.  But  let  it  be 
granted  that  female  colleges  can  and  will  be  sup- 
plied as  rapidly  as  they  are  needed,  the  question  still 
returns  upon  us,  and  is  sometimes  urged  with  no  little 
earnestness  and  energy — Why  should  the  two  sexes  be 
withdrawn  from  one  another,  it  being  conceded  that  they 
are  to  pursue  similar  studies,  and  can  do  this  with  equal 
rapidity  and  equal  success  ?  it  being  also  conceded  that  in 
many  cases  they  might  act  favorably  on  each  other  in 
respect  to  studiousness  and  character,  and  indirectly 
might  improve  the  morals  and  manners  of  the  academic 
community  ?  The  reply  to  this  comprehensive  question 
can  better  be  suggested  than  argued  at  length. 

We  would,  with  some  confidence,  submit  that  the  ex- 
perience of  many  generations,  and  the  varied  results  of 


402  CO-EDUCATION   OF   THE    SEXES. 

manifold  quiet  experiments  in  household  and  social  edu- 
cation, have  brought  the  majority  of  men  and  women  of 
every  Christian  community  to  the  deeply  rooted  convic- 
tion that  it  is  not  salutary  for  the  morals  and  manners, 
for  the  tastes  and  the  associations,  for  the  habits  and  the 
industries,  for  the  affections  and  the  imaginations  of  either 
sex,  that  they  should  associate  with  one  another  in  large 
communities,  in  ways  of  unreserve,  when  freed  from  the 
unfelt  but  powerful  restraints  of  the  household  and  the 
associations  of  home,  as  they  must  under  the  ordinary, 
and  even  the  exceptional  conditions  of  college  and  uni- 
versity life.  These  conditions  must  invoke  formal  and 
factitious  rules  with  supervision  of  a  special  character. 
This  supervision  must  of  itself,  as  often  as  it  is  enforced, 
be  a  perpetual  suggestion  of  possible  danger  and  evil.  It 
is  all  true  that  is  said  sometimes  of  the  very  serious  evils 
which  attend  isolation  of  boys  at  school  and  at  college  ; 
and  of  the  occasional  rudeness  and  audacity  of  girls  in  like 
circumstances.  It  is  possibly  true  that  some  evils  to  both 
might  in  some  cases  be  avoided  by  frequent  and  familiar 
association.  But  the  worse  things  which  might  come, 
now  and  then,  and  might  come  very  frequently,  through 
the  necessary  familiarities  of  academic  life,  and  cannot 
be  guarded  against,  and  the  constant  unrefinement  which 
must  attend  the  perpetual  enforcement  of  such  artificial 
restraints  as  could  never  be  dispensed  with,  would  slowly 
but  surely  eat  out  and  wear  away  that  inner  modesty  and 
unconscious  purity  which  the  old-fashioned  manners  were 
fitted  to  cherish  by  precluding  any  suggestions  of  evil. 

It  may  be  true  that  many  inherited  customs  and  tradi- 
tions respecting  the  relations  of  young  persons  before 
marriage,  and  respecting  the  occupations  and  manners 


CO-EDUCATION    OF   THE    SEXES.  403 

of  younger  and  older  women  need  to  be  changed.  But 
the  occasion  for  those  restraints  which  have  moulded  our 
manners  into  modesty,  is  .as  permanent  as  is  the  race 
itself;  and  any  customs  of  home  or  society,  or  arrange- 
ments for  education  which  do  not  recognize  the  exposures 
agamst  which  modesty  of  manner  and  refinement  of  senti- 
ment are  the  only  safeguards,  become  real,  even  though 
indirect,  educators  to  evil,  which  may  be  appalling  in  its 
consequences  in  proportion  to  the  wit  and  plausibility 
with  which  these  arrangements  are  defended,  and  the 
boldness  or  grace  with  which  they  are  urged  by  man  or 
woman. 

It  has  been  said,  perhaps  untruly,  that  the  legitimate 
operation  of  co-education,  under  the  most  favorable  cir- 
cumstances, is  to  make  the  men  more  feminine,  and  the 
women  more  man-like.  Whether  this  is  true  or  not,  it 
remains  true  that  were  womanliness  in  the  character  or 
manners  of  our  women  to  suffer  soil  or  harm  by  any  well- 
meant  theories  of  co-education,  the  loss  to  the  country 
and  the  world  would  be  poorly  compensated  by  any 
other  gain,  and  would  be  a  loss  from  which  the  country 
and  the  world  would  be  slow  to  recover. 


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TJt!;  Substance  of  two  Reports  of  the  Faculty  of  Amherst  College  te 
the  Board  of  Trustees,  -with  the  doings  of  the  Board  thereoti.  Am- 
herst :  Carter  &  Adams.     1827. 

ReJ>orts  on  the  Instruction  in  Yale  College;  by  a  Committee  of  the 
Corporation  and  the  Faculty.     New  Haven  :  H.Howe.     1828. 

An  Exposition  of  the  System  of  Instruction  and  Discipline  purs,*ea 
in  the  University  of  Ver?nont.  By  James  Marsh.  Burlington  : 
1829. 

Remarks  on  the  Nature  and  Probable  effects  of  introdticifig  the  Vohm- 
tary  System  in  the  Studies  of  Latin  and  Greek,  proposed  in  certain 
Resolutions  of  the  President  and  Fellows  of  Harvard  University, 
etc.     By  Josiah  Quincy,  President  of  the  University.     1841. 

Classical  Studies  at  Cambridge.  North  American  Review.  Jan. 
1842. 

Thoughts  on  the  Present  Collegiate  System  in  the  United  States.  By 
Francis  Wayland,  D.D,     Boston  :  1842. 

Classical  Studies,  etc.  Edited  by  Sears,  Edwards,  and  Felton. 
(Daniel  Wyttenbach.     Pp.  246 — 264.)     Boston  :  1843. 

Report  to  the  Corporation  of  Browjt  University  on  Changes  in  the 
System  of  Collegiate  Education.     Providence:   1850. 

University  Education.  Bv  Henry  P.  Tappan,  D.D,  New  York  : 
George  P.  Putnam.     1850. 

Education:  Intellectiial,  Moral,  and  Physical.  By  Herbert  Spen- 
cer.    D.  Appleton  &  Co,  :  1861. 


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Report  of  the  Committee  on  Organization,  presented  to  the  Trustees  of 
the  Cornell  University,  Oct.  21,  1866,     Albany  :   1867. 

The  Cornell  University.  Second  General  Announcement.  Second 
Edition,  with  additions.     Albany  :   1868. 

Letter  of  President  White  in  tJie  New  York  Tribune ;  March  16, 
1868. 

Classical  and  Scientific  Studies,  and  the  Great  Schools  of  England, 
etc.,  etc.     By  W.  P.  Atkinson.     Cambridge  :  1865. 

Remarks  on  Classical  and  Utilitarian  Studies,  etc.,  etc.  By  Jacob 
BiGELOW,  M.D.,  etc.     Boston  :  1867. 

Classical  Studies,  etc.,  etc.  By  Francis  Bowen.  Cambridge  : 
1867. 

Inau^ral  Address  delivered  to  the  University  of  St.  Andrews,  Feb.  I, 
1867.     By  John  Stuart  Mill,  etc.     London:  1867. 

Science  in  Schools.     London  Quarterly  Review.     Oct.,  1867. 

A  Lecture  delivered  at  the  Royal  Iftstitution,  Feb.  8,  1 867.  By  Rev. 
J.  W.  Farrar.     London:  1867. 

Speech  of  Robert  Lowe,  M.  P.,  at  Edinburgh,  Nov.  2,  1867. 

Essays  on  a  Liberal  Education.  Edited  by  Rev.  J.  W.  Farrar, 
etc.,  etc.     Second  Edition.     London  :   1868. 

Schools  and  Universities  on  the  Continent.  By  Matthew  Arnold, 
etc.,  etc.     London  :  1868. 

Suggestions  07t  Academical  Organization,  with  especial  reference  to 
Oxford.     By  Mark  Pattison,  etc.     Edinburgh  :  1868. 

Lnaugural  Address  of  Jajnes  M^Cosh,  D.D.,  LL.D.,  as  President 
of  the  College  of  New  Jersey,  Princeton,  Oct.  27,  1868.  New 
York  :  Robert  Carter  &  Brothers.     1868. 

The  Reorganization  of  the  University  of  Oxford.  By  Goldwin 
Smith.     Oxford  and  London:  James  Parker  &  Co.     1868. 

Study  and  Opinion  at  Oxford.     Macmillan's  Magazine.     Dec.  1869. 


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The  ''  A'ezo  Education.''''  The  Atlantic  Monthly,  Nos.  136,  137,  for 
February  and  March,  1869. 

Culture  and  Anarchy,  etc.  By  Matthew  Arnold.  London  : 
1869. 

Memorial  of  the  College  Life  of  the  Class  of  1827,  Dart7noiith  Col- 
lege, etc.     By  Alpheus  Crosby.     Hanover,  X.  H.  :  1869-70. 

Addresses  at  the  Inauguration  of  Charles  William  Eliot  as  President 
of  Harvard  College,  Tuesday,  October  19,  1S69.  Cambridge: 
Sever  &  Francis.     1869. 

Annual  Reports  of  the  President  and  Treasurer  of  Ha7'vard  College, 
1868-69.     Cambridge  :  Welch,  Bigelow  &  Co.     1869. 

Von  Deutschen  Hochschiden  Allerlei,  was  da  ist  and  uuas  da  sein 
sollte.  Von  eine?n  Deutschen  Professor.  Berlin  :  George  Reimer. 
1869. 

Addresses  at  the  Inauguration  of  Professor  Noah  Porter^  D.  D. , 
LL.D.^  as  President  of  Yale  College,  Wednesday.^  October  11, 
1871.     New  York  :  Charles  Scribner  &  Co.     1871. 

Heinrich  von  Sybel  :  Die  deutschen  Universitdten,  ihre  Leis- 
tungen  und  Bediirfnisse.     Bonn  :   1 874. 

C.  Peter  :  Ein  Vorschlag  zu  Reform  tinserer  Gymnasien. 
Jena :     1874. 

Carl  Friedrich  von  Nagelsbach  :  Gymnasial  Pddagogik, 
2te  Aufiage.     Erlangen  :   1869. 

La  Reforme  de  U Enseignement  Secondaire.  Par  Jules  Simon. 
Deuxieme  Edition.     Paris  :    Hachette  &  Co.     1874. 

Die  Freiheit  der  Wissenschaft  im  modernen  Staat.  Rede  gehal- 
ten  in  der  dritten  allgemeinen  Sitzung  der  funfzigsten  Versamm- 
lung  deutschen  Nattirforscher  und  Aerzte  zu  Miinchen  am  22.  Sep- 
tember^  1877.  Von  RuDOLF  Virchow.  Zweite  Auflage.  Berlin  : 
1877. 

Ucber  die  Academische  Freiheit  der  deutschen  Universitdten, 
Rede  beim  Antritt  des  Rectorats  under  Friedrich-  Wilhelms-  Uni- 


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versitdt  zu  Berlin,  am  i<,ten  October,  gehalten.  Von  Dr.  H. 
Helmholtz.     Berlin  :   1878. 

German  Universities :  A  Narrative  of  Personal  Experience^ 
together  with  Recent  Statistical  Information,  and  a  Comparison  of 
the  German,  English,  and  A7n  eric  an  Systems  of  Higher  Education. 
By  James  Morgan  .  Hart.  G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons,  New  York. 
1874. 

University  of  Michigatt^  Department  of  Literature,  Science  and 
the  Arts.  Announcement  for  1878.-9.  Important  change  in  the 
Plan  of  Work. 

The  Johns  Hopkins  University.  Austin  Bierbower.  Penn 
Monthly.     September,  1878. 

The  Liberal  Education  of  Women :  The  Demand  and  the 
Method.  Current  Thoughts  in  America  and  England.  Edited 
by  James  Orton,  A.  M. ,  Professor  in  Vassar  College,  etc.  A.  S. 
Barnes  &  Co.,  New  York  &  Chicago.      1873. 


